After more than 60 years – Spanish Contergan victims receive financial aid from the state Broken fingers and bruises – Attack on Russian journalist in Chechnya

More than 60 years after the drug scandal in Contergan, the surviving Spanish victims receive financial support from the state. The one-off payment can be requested within the next three months, the government announced on Tuesday after the council of ministers in Madrid approved the aid.

How much money the victims of the sedative from the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal receive depends on the degree of disability. With a disability rate of 33 percent, for example, that is 396,000 euros, according to the Ministry of Social Rights. “We are finally beginning to get rid of one of our country’s greatest shames: the total neglect of Contergan victims.”Minister Ione Belarra said in a video on Twitter.

The advocacy organization Avite welcomed the decision, but complained that only 130 affected people were allowed to receive the benefit. To determine the number of applicants, the Carlos III Institute in Madrid recently examined 600 cases. “There are not 130, but hundreds more. The evidence is inconclusive in many cases. 50 and 60 years later, we are still fighting,” Avite president José Riquelme told La Vanguardia newspaper. Unfortunately, many of the victims had already died, he complained.

Riquelme’s association has been fighting for the rights of Contergan victims in Spain since 2004. In 2013, a court in Madrid was right. Higher courts all ruled against Avite, citing the statute of limitations that had expired, most recently the Constitutional Court in 2016. According to Avite, only 24 Spanish victims had received help in various ways. Grünenthal states that some of those affected have been receiving benefits from the Contergan Foundation in Spain since 1973.

The sleeping pill and sedative Contergan caused one of the largest drug scandals in the late 1950s. Worldwide, about 10,000 children were born with severe physical malformations, 5,000 of them in Germany. According to Avite, there were about 3,000 victims in Spain alone because the drug was prescribed here for longer than in other countries during the Franco dictatorship. (sda/dpa)