The thalidomide disaster is one of the darkest episodes in pharmaceutical research history.

The drug was marketed as a mild sleeping pill safe even for pregnant women. However, it

caused thousands of babies worldwide to be born with malformed limbs. The damage was

revealed in 1962. Before then, every new drug was seen as beneficial. Now there was

suspicion and rigorous testing.

The development and sale of thalidomide

Thalidomide was developed in the 1950s by the West German pharmaceutical

company Chemie Grünenthal GmbH to expand the company’s product range

beyond antibiotics. It was an anticonvulsive drug, but instead it made users sleepy and

relaxed. It seemed a perfect example of newly fashionable tranquilisers.

The aftermath and thalidomide’s controversial rehabilitation

There was a long criminal trial in Germany and a British newspaper campaign. They forced

Grünenthal and its British licensee, the Distillers Company, to financially support victims

of the drug. Thalidomide led to tougher testing and drug approval procedures in many

countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

At a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, a new organization, the Thalidomide

Survivors' Task Group, said that at a meeting on Oct. 19, federal disabilities minister

Kent Hehr "managed to insult and degrade us repeatedly."

While those kinds of comments are sure to get the media's attention — and they

certainly did — the group is demanding the federal government double the

compensation it agreed to pay in 2015, pointing today to "the government's

negligence."

A documentary broadcast on CBC's Documentary Channel earlier this year, No

Limits, says thalidomide "was the worst drug disaster in history," while in 2014 the

Guardian called it a "pharmaceutical outrage."