Abstract
In my first year as a criminology master student in Budapest, the case of Thalidomide emerged in the classroom. Despite being advertised in the 1960s as so safe that it could be taken by expectant mothers to relieve morning sickness, Thalidomide proved to have adverse effects on the unborn child. These children were born without limbs, had disfigured appendages instead of arms and legs, some had fused fingers, or malformed eyes and ears, suffered from deafness, cardiovascular complications, and defects of the kidneys and digestive tract. It is estimated that 24,000 babies were born with this condition world-wide, many dying as a result of their defects. In 2011, less than 3000 Thalidomide children were still alive (Dove 2011). The company which placed Thalidomide (brand name Contergan also known as Softenon) on the market, despite evidence of the drug causing Phocomelia in preclinical studies on mice, was never held criminally liable, nor did it ever admit to wrongdoing.
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Nancy Fern Olivieri v Commission of the European Communities and European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (2003).T-326/99.
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Laskai, A. (2020). Introduction. In: Institutional Corruption Theory in Pharmaceutical Industry-Medicine Relationships. Studies of Organized Crime, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44790-8_1
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