Nazi scientist linked to thalidomide signed off on penicillin imports into Ireland
A Nazi scientist working at the company which made controversial compound thalidomide found in pregnancy drugs signed off on imports of penicillin and other drugs into Ireland during the 1950s, the Irish Thalidomide Association (ITA) has discovered.
It is now even more urgent the State shares its papers on the thalidomide controversy to unveil all links with the company now called Grünenthal, the association urged on Thursday.
Heinrich Mückter, a Nazi party member, experimented during the Second World War on prisoners in camps including Buchenwald. It is said hundreds died after being injected with the killer disease typhus.
Despite being wanted in Poland for war crimes, he escaped and later became chief scientist at Grünenthal. Links between Nazism and thalidomide have been previously documented.
In 2012 American outlet Newsweek wrote: “It was in this company of men, indifferent to suffering and believers in a wretched philosophy that life is cheap, that thalidomide was developed and produced.”
Finola Cassidy, thalidomide survivor and ITA spokeswoman, found these new documents in the National Archives.
“I was nearly sick the first time I saw his name, then to turn the pages and repeatedly see his name, I felt sick,” she said.
Communication she saw and shared with the Irish Examinerindicates he signed off on information requested by Department of Health officials from the company.
“These declarations included responsibility for the manufacture and importation of penicillin and other pharmaceutical products distributed in Ireland throughout the 1950s,” she said.
“State files related to Thalidomide have never been disclosed.”
Ms Cassidy added: “Nobody has let on to us about this history before thalidomide, I just didn’t know there was a history with this company.
The ITA is aware of just 40 remaining Irish survivors now.
In June Jacqui Browne, survivor and advocate from Tralee and Fenit in Kerry, passed away. In April, a mother from White’s Cross in Cork, Peggy Murphy, died, devastated to the end by the impact on her son.
“After 60 years of campaigning we deserve better, we deserve honesty, and basic human decency,” Ms Cassidy said.
“This discovery proves why our work must go on. But it begs the question – when we tell them what we have found this time, will they tell us ‘yes we already knew, but we were damned if we were ever going to tell you’.”
