It’s Back

Thalidomide is the most famous bad drug in history. So why is it coming back?

The Independent Magazine, September 1995

Towards the end of last month, 115 people with no arms or legs gathered in a small village in southern Sweden to talk about their common interests. All in their mid-30s, most of them seemed to like the same sort of music and sport. They came from all over the world, but they had a similar taste in clothes, food and beer.

They shared one more thing: their mothers had all taken thalidomide between 1957 and 1962, primarily as a sedative, a sleeping pill, something that could calm nerves and help with morning sickness. Great claims were made for the drug, not least that I was completely non-toxic. Unlike other barbiturates, thalidomide was considered so safe that even pregnant women could take it. So they did, many thousands of them, and a small fraction of their 10,000 offspring are now in a large hotel in Sweden discussing all the things that concerned them most: compensation, ageing, pain-relief, mobility.

This was only the second time such an international gathering had been organised – the first was four years ago – and people had come from Japan, Scotland, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands to attend. As they talked in the bar, there was a new topic of conversation, one that had rarely occupied them before, and one which they believed they would never have to confront. Thalidomide was making a comeback, and not in a shy way.

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