I think that people are presuming that you are making a poor taste joke. It’s a real book and great for putting a pit of perspective on life.

Chris, He is an inspiration. Well worth watching the DVD. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry afterwards….a beautiful thing…

It’s a real DVD, well worth watching, puts things into perspective, cheers lads.

Rory
Liability depends on your point of view or your Lawyers assumption as to whether he will get paid in the event of a Loss or a Win!
The view of Barristers in the Law Library is that the State has absolutely no case to answer but that hasn’t prevents cases being brought to trial in the past. The victims of Thalidomide would say that Ireland allowed the drug to remain on the market some seven months longer than other countries but against that it could be argued that there has already been compensation paid and in 2010 the then Minister for Health offered special Health packages , a small annual payment and a lump sum of sixty five thousand Euro to each person affected but apparently this was rejected and off they trotted to the Courts.
As sad as the case is the danger will always be the consequential knock on affect which with always have the potential to financially ruin us or the victims could lose their case and be made paupers.However if I were to choose between army deafness and this case I know which one I’d be supporting.

The government is responsible for the Public Health Service, and the Public Health Service is responsible for providing a treatment that directly caused the deformities. ( Sorry for the word “deformities”, I don’t mean to belittle in any way ),

Nikolas
Not when compensation has already been paid. A second bite of the cherry is not a part of our legal system.

Taxpayers were and are the victims. It’s called social solidarity.

Richard, you are just pure sick…
170 developers ran up a bill of 70 billion euro on their own accounts… in a couple of banks …
You continually argue we should pay that bill, as its our ‘civic’ duty, but you think children of parents who were told they must take state administered vaccines should go and swim …. is just sick. FFG/Labour have already shown what a sick parasitic group they are … but this is just taking it one step too far.
James O’Reilly and Eamonn Gilmore, both signed pledges prior to the election, that they would get justice for the victims … Like everything else they pledged, they p*ssed all over the people that voted for their stances, once they got into power.
They may change their minds in the next few months/years because of the public outcry, but anyone of good faith, would not need public outcry’s to honor pledges to get elected.
FFG/Labour are a shame/blight on our society similar to their predecessors.

Cal this is about thalidomide, go have a bondholders rant on an article about the bondholders.

I would have thought it would be the drugs manufacturers and the regulators for allowing the drug come to market.

Surely there were animal studies done? Clinical trials? Are we seriously to believe that there were no indications that the drug could cause deformities?

I wonder is this more similar to the likes of Vioxx, Bextra, Avandia etc – someone really wanted to make money so they didn’t tell the whole truth?

@richard – You have a point, perhaps the victims should pursue the legal action on their own. Most of them are deceased anyway. Those who survive until today, with their deformed limbs had plenty of time as unwanted children growing up in orphanages or with families on the breadline to pursue a legal action. Its not as if being born with severe deformities in the 1960’s / 70′s curtailed your standard of living much or deprived you of equal opportunity. Its not as if being told untruths about the cause of your condition as a adult should count. Being a citizen of this State, let alone a deformed child, is simply no excuse for not pursuing your rights on your own time, cost.

On the other hand, perhaps you should refund the state the cost of your education. What a waste!

The clinical trials pre-Thalidomide were not at all rigorous like today. That’s why so many drugs were coming to market in the 60′s and 70′s compared to the rate of development now. Now we have massive amounts of regulation and clinical trials spanning years, before the drug even reaches human test subjects. And hence why new drugs are so expensive as companies try to recoup their costs and make profit before patent expiry.

Hey, we may as well not have all those rigorous trials, seeing as how there’s no obligation on drug manufacturers to submit negative findings from clinical trials to the regulators. That and the amount of trial manipulation etc that goes on.. Doctors are often none the wiser about the dangers of the drugs that have been deemed “safe” until after the scandal breaks and people get hurt or die..

The regulators are not doing a good enough job. Considering most of them have links (ie former executives / share interests) to the industries they are supposed to be regulating it may be fair to say that there is a conflict of interest, one that can prove quite damaging.

Ps, that’s not the reason why new drugs are so expensive.. Pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much on advertising and marketing than they do on research and development..
Including spending tens of thousands of dollars per physician, per year. Surely this money would be better spent actually researching new drugs??

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050001

Shanti
Where on earth did you get the idea that Pharmaceutical Companies are not obliged to provide Regulatory Authorities with negative data from Clinical Trials. Deliberate withholding of such data is a criminal offense!

Hello Mark / Paddy / Richard / Michael whatever you’re calling yourself today..

I was going to ask whether you lived under a rock, but you’re a troll – so it’s more likely a bridge..

I refer you to the works of; Ben Goldacre, Richard Smith, John Ionnadis et al.

This is a problem that’s been going on for some years, and to those with their eyes open who accept truth as authority rather than authority as truth – it is very apparent.

It usually comes to the surface when a load of people die – remember Avandia a couple of years back? Balances your blood sugar by killing you. Same with vioxx and bextra – they took away the pain and stiffness of arthritis by making your heart stop.

After many, many people died it emerged that the manufacturers had discovered at trial stage that these drugs increased your risk of a fatal coronary event by 40%. They just didn’t submit that to the FDA.. Are GSK still around? What about Merck? Because it was their drugs..

Please – educate yourself. There are more than enough articles and books on the subject. This is a massive problem in the realm of healthcare, what you have said should be the case, but it most certainly isn’t.

Shanti what about all the drugs on the market that have no adverse effects, and have led to a dramatic increase in average life expectancy over the past 20 years? How does all this supposed cover-up and failure of the regulatory system account for that?

Please – show me a drug that doesn’t have an adverse side effect listed on the side effects on the package insert because the majority do – even aspirin (bleeding ulcers and AMD). And those are just the ones that are disclosed..

The increase in life span is just as likely to be down to better sanitation as it is to do with drugs, yes – we live longer, but if you check out the morbidity rates – we also live sicker. We now spend a higher percentage of our lives sick with chronic diseases than we did when our lifespans were shorter. Why the preoccupation with whether you see 100? Is it all that great if you spend 30 years locked inside your head in a nursing home bed?

Cancer rates, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, mental illnesses etc – all of them have exploded in occurrence in recent history. People spend a larger portion of their lives reliant on drugs that don’t always help (eg – SSRI drugs – linked to homicidal and suicidal behaviour – not actually linked to any benefit for the patient – when all the suppressed studies are included in the meta analysis their performance is worse than placebo).

But please – don’t take my word for it. Ben Goldacre has a book out called Bad Pharma (and one called Bad Science). There’s plenty of scholarly articles about it, with references that you can check.. It’s a bit of an eye opener – it’s shocking and sickening, but it’s something you really ought to know.

Older version of Ben Goldacres Bad Pharma eh?