The Campaign

The Thalidomide drug disaster that happened over 50 years ago has still not been resolved. At stake is the credibility of the whole pharmaceutical industry. Grünenthal, the company that patented the thalidomide drug, does not accept it has a responsibility to all its victims. Johnson & Johnson, which is now a commercial partner of Grünenthal, is subsequently ignoring its own credo.
Johnson & Johnson’s credo states that: 

“Research must be carried on, innovative programs developed and mistakes paid for and we are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well.”

We, the representatives of thalidomide survivors, have tried extremely hard to persuade Grünenthal to put right the gross injustice that it perpetrated in the middle of the last century. The company, having failed to avail itself of the opportunity to settle matters amicably, must now bear the consequences.

We are asking Johnson & Johnson to live up to its credo, to “encourage” a company with which it has such a strategic commercial relationship, to adopt the behaviour of the “model corporate citizen”, and to face up to its past for the first time.

Next: Thalidomide Background