Members of the Thalidomide Action Group will meet a representative of Guinness in London today following the publication of new evidence suggesting the side-effects of the Thalidomide drug can be inherited. Mr Freddie Astbury, of the Thalidomide Action Group, travelled to Guinness's London headquarters yesterday to present the new evidence and a demand for extra compensation. The Department of Health is also considering the evidence.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Thalidomide drug was prescribed to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness. Then in 1961, serious questions were raised after large numbers of the children were born without limbs or with partial limbs, and others had suffered damage to internal organs.
To date, 11 of the 380 British children born to original Thalidomide victims have been found to have congenital limb defects, a figure that is up to five times as high than the national rate. United Distillers, the group that originally distributed the drug and was subsequently taken over by Guinness, initially paid the victims of Thalidomide £33 million or lump sums for individuals of up to £30,000.
However, the Thalidomide Trust, set up to distribute funds to victims has been running out of money. Two years ago Guinness announced a package of £2.5 million a year to the trust for the next five years, and the British government made a one-off payment of £7 million to the 458 victims living in Britain. The Thalidomide Action Group is also calling for a national register to document the health problems of victims.
The new evidence, published in a scientific journal, Teratogenesis, Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis, last month, claimed that if genetic damage occurred in the reproductive cells damaged by Thalidomide then the side-effects may be passed on to the next generation. However, in the study carried out by scientists in Australia, the evidence pointed to only a proportion of the children of Thalidomide victims suffering inherited side-effects.
If it is proved that children born to original Thalidomide victims inherited limb defects, it could open the way for massive "second generation" claims for compensation from Guinness. However, Mr Chris Davidson, the group public affairs director in Britain, said he thought the Thalidomide Action Group had presented itself with "quite a challenge" in bringing legal action against Guinness.
"Our solicitors are looking at the evidence presented by the group," Mr Davidson said, "but my understanding is that there is no medical evidence to support the claim of second-generation defects. Whether there is evidence it is against the possibility. Second-generation defects indicate genetic inheritance. This could indicate that some of the first generation was misdiagnosed. The law is against them and they face quite a barrier."