Letter to the Judge

In June 1973, the Association for Justice for Irish Thalidomide Children corresponded with the Department of Health. Stating that “through inadequate warnings to doctors, chemists and parents and the carelessness of some of the government parties, the drug containing Thalidomide continued to be available, sold, and administered to parents long after the   1961 world warning ” This was a disaster fathered by a lackadaisical drug regulatory system . I was one of those babies affected.                                                

I am now in the third and final stage of my life, and suffering increasing pain and disability.                                                                                                                                           I have grown up and lived a life where freedom and privacy has been an unknown concept.   From a very young age, I felt like a guinea pig in a science lab. I was subjected to a large number of medical examinations.                                                                                                                           Doctors exhibited me, for medical students to learn. I have endured ill-founded attempts to have my arms and legs interfered with or operated on.                                                  
I had many invasive and unnecessary tests performed on me with great pain and discomfort. This done to make “me look as normal as possible”.                                                                                                                                           Many of these trials were of an experimental nature and mostly unsuccessful. Moreover, there were countless plaster casts made and trials with prosthesis, splints and braces fitted.   No one listened when I tried to say that I preferred to use my own limbs.                           My mother although she understood, felt powerless to disagree with the so call professionals....