German Court Allows Screening of Thalidomide Drama After Cuts

A television drama about the thalidomide scandal which led to thousands of women giving birth to disabled children, has sparked a bitter row between the film-makers and the creators of the drug, 50 years after the anti-morning sickness pill came on to the market.

The two-part drama, produced by the Cologne company Zeitsprung for the channel Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), seeks to dramatise the shocking events surrounding the way the drug came on to the market, and how the victims - many of whom were born without limbs after their mothers took the drug during pregnancy - were subsequently treated.

It is loosely based on the true story of a lawyer whose son was born with deformities and who spent more than a decade in the courts, fighting for recognition.

Around 10,000 children were born with severe malformations as a result of the drug, half of them in Germany.

This week WDR was given the go-ahead by a Hamburg court to show Contergan - A Single Tablet, after a lengthy court battle with the drug's maker, the German pharmaceuticals company Grünenthal GmbH. Contergan is the name under which the pills, which contained thalidomide and were meant to counteract the effects of morning sickness and insomnia, were marketed in Germany.

Zeitsprung has been told that the film may be shown only after certain scenes have been cut and a disclaimer added stating that the film is a fictionalisation of the real story. Zeitsprung has provisionally agreed to the changes.

"This is a victory for artistic freedom as well as for the victims of Contergan, whose plight is poorly recognised in Germany," Michael Souvignier, the film's producer, told the Guardian after the court ruling.

Grünenthal, based in Aachen, has said it may take the case to the country's highest court, claiming that the film contains gross historical inaccuracies, namely the portrayal of its alleged unwillingness to compensate victims. "We resent the insinuation in the film that we behaved with infamy and without moral scruples," said Annette Fusenig, the company's head of corporate communications. She said the company paid 100 million Deutschmarks into a fund to compensate the victims.

The Federation of the Contergan-Disabled and Friends said it was vital that the film was shown. Andreas Meyer, 46, its chairman, was born without arms and legs and survives on the Contergan Foundation monthly pension of €545, while those with no arms only, get €220. He said: "The transparent attempt of Grünenthal ... to stop a film which shows the dirty methods with which Grünenthal wanted to escape responsibility, has failed - for the time being at least."