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Writer's pictureEditor Darren Birks

Thalidomide The Last Drug They Said Was 'Safe and Effective'


There is an entire generation of parents who are blissfully unaware of the Thalidomide scandal. They believe that Governments, Scientists and Pharmaceutical companies all have their best interests at heart, and that pharmaceuticals companies, in conjunction with those governments, have never tried to cover-up their malpractices, scandals and lies. Nothing could be further from the truth.


As soon as vaccine deaths began to occur some people likened the growing nightmare to the Thalidomide scandal, which worldwide maimed an estimated 20,000 babies and killed 80,000 more during the 1950s and 1960s. This angered some of the scientists pushing Covid Vaccines who claimed the two things were entirely different and could not be compared. One scientist even going as far as claiming that the 'comparison' was an insult to the Thalidomide victims. This purposefully missed the point. It is not the drug or the associated illness that we're comparing, it's the behaviour of pharmaceuticals companies, Healthcare providers and their friends in Government we are drawing parallels with. If this angers scientists who may well be attempting to cover up their own malpractice then why should we care? Maybe they should be worried. Even the best gaslighting cannot destroy the facts, and parents with children about to be vaccinated for an illness they don't suffer from, should be made aware that Scientists and Politicians have form when it comes to lying about medicines, often with fatal consequences.

Until 2020 Thalidomide was considered the "biggest man‐made medical disaster ever" . It is known to be the cause of over 20,000 children being born without fully developed limbs and is estimated to have caused a further 80,000 stillbirths. However, this could have been many tens of thousands more as 'many mothers would not have known the drug was the cause of miscarriage or stillbirth' according to the Former head of the Thalidomide Trust Martin Johnson. “Virtually none of those who suffered miscarriages would have known, and that would have applied to around 90% of those suffering stillbirths" said Johnson. Chillingly he went on to say: "The babies were hidden and there was no birth defects register,”


Thalidomide was widely used in Britain as a treatment for morning sickness in pregnant women. At the time it was claimed to be a 'wonder drug' and pregnant women everywhere were encouraged to take the medicine like a simple antacid. This 'wonder drug' was created by German Pharmaceuticals company The Grünenthal Group and was released in the UK in 1961 under licence.


The company spent millions on marketing and promotions, sending out thousands of 'free samples' to doctors and producing television and Newspaper adverts that all suggested the drug was 'safe and effective' and even that it would give the woman her 'freedom' back.

It should be noted that Thalidomide was never tested on pregnant women before launch, the patent only mentioning that it had been 'tested on humans' and was vague about exactly what that meant. It is likely they were tested on unwilling 'volunteers' from Nazi concentration camps, as the two chemists who created the drug were both heavily involved in medical experiments for the Nazi Party during the war. After the war had ended, like many Nazi Scientist, the two Thalidomide inventors sold their expertise to the highest bidder, and were put to work legitimising the research they had done for the Nazi Party a few years earlier.


In 1961 a West German Physician, Dr Lenz, reported that the high rate of birth defects he was seeing was most likely caused by the Thalidomide drug, becoming the first Thalidomide whistleblower in the process. Lenz mistakenly thought that this alert would see the drug suspended from use and an investigation started, but what actually happened was that the pharmaceuticals company initiated a 'damage limitation' plan. First they went after Lenz personally in an attempt to silence him. Grünenthal sent three of their legal team to Lenz' house who threatened him with legal action for what they claimed was 'an unjustified attack on their company'. The authorities asked the pharmaceuticals company to voluntarily remove the drug from sale, but instead of doing that they sent out more free samples together with 30,000 leaflets to doctors saying that the drug was 'safe and effective'.


The Pharmaceuticals company then launchd a withering barrage of personal attacks on Dr Lenz. They slandered him, repeatedly, placed false stories in the media about him and his family, and systematically tried to destroy him and his work. Effectively the attack ruined his career and his spent the rest of his life fighting for the thalidomide victims in courts around the world. In one such court case Lenz was cross examined by eighteen Grünenthal lawyers in a bid to break him. In another court case the Pharmaceuticals giants lawyers claimed that the birth defects were caused by an, as yet unidentified virus. Brilliantly Lunz pointed out to that there were no cases of birth defect in east germany, where the drug was not for sale, and that no virus would stop at the Berlin Wall.


The company threw millions of deutschmarks at the problem, not to compensate the victims or to even do research, no, they spent the money on employing the best legal team they could find together with PR agents who cosied-up to Health officials who could help make the problem 'go away'.


The company avoided any criminal trial and nobody was ever held responsible for the deaths and serious injuries wilfully inflicted on unwitting patients. The company even later argued that it wasn't against the law to damage a fetus, because fetuses had no legal rights in Germany so they had done nothing wrong. There was no criminal trial in Britain either, Enoch Powell, the Health Minister at the time, flatly refused a public inquiry, and victims had to go on fighting for compensation for decades before any admission of guilt was made by anyone.


The UK Health Authority had not done any safety tests of its own on the drug, so at the very least were guilty of gross negligence. The drug was simply distributed to NHS doctors with an accompanying leaflet assuring them that it was 'safe and effective'. Even after deaths and deformities were known to be caused by Thalidomide the UK Government ignored the evidence and carried on distributing it for another year before finally withdrawing it from the market. The act condemned thousands more to be needlessly born with deformities.


The parallels between Thalidomide and Covid Vaccines are clear for all to see. A drug released onto the market without proper safety testing; massive advertising campaigns repeating that the drug is 'safe and effective' and that its use will enable the patient to regain their freedom; deaths and injuries dismissed as not caused by the drug, or by an unknown virus; whistleblowers vilified and hounded out of their jobs; pharmaceuticals companies covering-up their crimes; and governments working in cahoots with the criminals against the people they were elected to serve.


It's not difficult to see why covid scientists have become so angry over the Thalidomide comparison: it's because its too close for comfort. It proves they've got form in this regard. Criminals often protest their innocence the loudest, and become aggressive when their story is challenged. We should be paying particular attention to how similar these two stories are, not dismiss them just because the criminals say so. After all, what criminal is going to be happy that we know their Modus Operandi?

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