The shame of Spain: Thalidomide victims get no compensation

Patients hearing the bad news

MADRID --The Provincial Court of Madrid has decided to annul the indemnization to victims of the Thalidomide scandal of the 1950s, who had been claiming between €155 and €204 million (depending on which source you choose) from the manufacturers, the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal and UCB Laboratories. All over the world, Thalidomide was well proven to be the cause of serious malformation in the womb, although for a number of years it was prescribed as a 'safe' medicine for pregnant women. Also all over the world, victims have been compensated with varying amounts, but this Madrid court's sentence says that the matter had prescribed. It added that the association of Thalidomide victims, called Avite (Asociación de Víctimas de la Talidomida en España), which presented their case to

the courts in 2012, already knew in 2008 of the 'necessary elements to make their claim'. In a radio recent interview the President of Avite, José Riquelme, who was born without his right leg and had a small foot hanging in its place, which was removed when he was 17, said, "Of course, the companies have a battery of lawyers, and we have only been able to afford one, who has worked mostly for free for many years." [Personal note: Having had two Thalidomide victims as good friends in my childhood and adolescence, both of whom died much too young, I am so disgusted by this outcome that I find it almost impossible to write about it. Which is why it is short.]