Thalidomide : the fifty year fight.

Documentary looking at the history of the drug thalidomide and, in particular, the fight for compensation, past and present. It begins by looking back at the birth stories of a number of thalidomide-affected people and shows archive film footage, newsreels and photographs from the time. A comprehensive history of how and why thalidomide was prescribed and how it affected the unborn foetus is given. David Mason, father of thalidomider Louise Medus-Mansell, is featured frequently as he was one of the key figures in the early battle for compensation. His fight against Distillers, the drug company who licensed thalidomide in the UK, is covered in depth. Nine years after thalidomide had been removed from the market, none of the affected families had received compensation - the only offer from Distillers was insultingly small and David Mason exposed the entire story to the Daily Mail. However, the newspaper came under such threat from the government, Distillers and other parents of thalidomide-affected children that they stopped publishing the story. In 1972, the Sunday Times began to show interest in Mason's campaign and were determined to expose the full truth behind the thalidomide story. Marjorie Wallace was the journalist employed to travel the country seeking out families to interview for the newspaper; she recounts how difficult this was. MP Jack Ashley took the story to parliament and Rupert Murdoch secretly funded an illegal poster campaign which openly attacked Distillers. A number of Distillers' shareholders put further pressure onto the drug company to compensate those affected by thalidomide and a boycott of all Distillers products was threatened. In one week, nine million pounds was wiped off the value of Distillers' shares and they finally offered a settlement in 1973 of twenty million pounds - some of this was paid directly to the families and the rest was put into a Trust which gave out annual payments to all those affected by thalidomide for life. The programme ends with an update on current campaign strategies and liabilities that thalidomiders still feel Diageo (the company who since bought out Distillers) have to pay.