Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
Latest editorial
Nazis who got rich from deformed baby drug
Much has been written about the drug thalidomide but not much about the nazi roots of the company who made it says PETER FROST
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THE scandal of thalidomide started to become public in 1959, sixty years ago.
The German drug company Chemie Grunenthal — part of the Wirtz Group — had launched the drug just two years before and as the tablets were prescribed for more and more pregnant women with severe morning sickness, the terrible consequences it would have for newborn babies and their parents started to become known.
Who were Chemie Grunenthal? Today we know that in the immediate post-war years this drug company had become a bolt hole for nazi chemists, some of them convicted war criminals and at least one of them a convicted mass murderer.
Similar stories
1943-2025: How one man’s unfinished work reveals the lethal lie of ‘colour-blind’ medicine
Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
The decision highlights the tension between freedom of expression and the state’s role in shaping historical memory at former concentration camps, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI