Contergan child

000 ¿ 12. Les medicaments contenant de la thalidomide \nA disabled child without arms or legs learns to move around on specially designed walking aids. In the late 1950s and 60s about 8,000 to 12,000 children were born with serious deformities, many died, due to the use of the sleeping drug Contergan by their mothers during pregnancy. Drugs containing thalidomide, Contergan among them, were distributed starting 1 October 1957 by Stollberg (located near Aachen, Germany) based pharmaceuticals company Gr¾nenthal without proper testing and without barring the drug's use during pregnancy. Reports of serious damages to people's health were ignored until a newspaper article in November 1961 forced the company to stop all sales and withdraw all products containing thalidomide.