Time to apologise for this ludicrous apology

It's ironic that the Grünenthal Group, the German company behind the thalidomide tragedy of the 1950s and 60s, should choose to make a half-hearted apology to its surviving victims during the Paralympics 2012 - the world's largest stage for athletes with disabilities.

While the nation has pulled together and come out in huge numbers to admire and support these remarkable athletes, there has been much talk about the positive spin-off of the paralympics in terms of making this country more caring for those with disabilities.

So against this backdrop, this rather disingenuous apology 50 years after the event comes like a kick in the teeth. And it has understandably annoyed the Thalidomide Agency UK, which has campaigned tirelessly for victims of the drug. This morning I woke up to hear thalidomide survivor, Nick Dobrik speak most articulately on Radio 4's Today programme. "An apology", he said, "should be an unreserved apology and not a conditional apology. It is strange when a company gives an apology which is not the truth. We feel that a sincere and genuine apology is one which actually admits wrongdoing. The company has not done that and has really insulted the thalidomiders."

The drug which was supposed to cure morning sickness was never properly put through its drug trials and many at the time were critical. And it wasn't until 1961 when an Australian doctor, William McBride, wrote to the Lancet after noticing an increase in deformed babies being born at his hospital to mothers who had taken thalidomide, that alarm bells started to ring. The drug was removed from the market later that year.

It took another seven years before any compensation was paid out in the UK by the distributer Distillers Biochemicals Limited (now Diageo). And this was only because Harold Evans, then editor of the Sunday Times, had launched a campaign on behalf of the sufferers. This said, the compensation figure finally reached was derisory - just £28 million.

There are no fewer than 458 people in this country suffering with the after-effects of one company's criminal incompetence, and the cost to adapt each and every one of these victim's lives must run into frightening numbers. But more significantly, let us not forget those who didn't survive. It is estimated that for every thalidomide survivor, at least ten babies were killed by the drug before or after birth.

So perhaps now, while the world's eyes are on the paralympians, this would be a good time for Grünenthal chief executive Harald Stock to put his company's money where his mouth is and make a genuine, heartfelt apology.

Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds 

America's reluctant hero

I knew back then that it was a momentous occasion. I was ten years of age and this was the first time
my parents had actually allowed me to stay up late in pyjamas and dressing gown to join them and my elder brother around the rented black and white television set. Annoyingly, this wasn't to watch 'The Avengers' or the outrageous 'Till Death Us Do Part', but something far more surreal: a fuzzy art-house type film of a cratered landscape badly choreographed to electronic bleeps and unintelligible American voices.

The moon landing of 1969 was watched on television by a staggering 500 million people worldwide. The immortal words uttered by Neil Armstrong as his boot touched the lunar landscape were his own, and have now become iconic. Though the clunky technology of 1969 was unable to transmit the phrase perfectly. The word 'a' before 'man' was lost in the ether, so 500 million heard the less than perfect: "That's a small step for... man. One giant leap for mankind." Armstrong was sure that he'd said the line in full and computer technology some years later was to prove him right.

More impressively though, Neil Armstrong managed to avert disaster moments before the lunar module touched down. Believing that the craft was heading directly for what looked like an unsafe landing area, he took over the manual controls and landed it safely further afield with no more than 45 seconds of fuel to spare.

Armstrong was originally chosen by NASA management as the commander of the mission on account of his lack of ego, and it's remarkable looking back on his extraordinary achievment that this modest and private man should have so consciously shunned the limelight for so many years following the historic touch-down. And let us not forget the incredible bravery of this three-man crew including Buz Aldrin and Michael Collins. For the risks these three faced were immense, and the chances of never returning to Earth very real.

Yesterday it was announced that Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, died at the age of 82 due to complications following heart surgery. President Obama paid tribute to his achievement by describing him as "one of the greatest American heroes of all time." It's an epithet that may have made Neil Armstrong shudder. And I suspect that it is this aversion to celebrity that will cement his place in the history books, because if history teaches us anything it's that the world's most reluctant heroes receive the biggest standing ovations, the biggest send-offs, the biggest obituaries; and in Neil Armstrong's case, deservedly so.

Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds 

Crappy packaging for fags

First we had the introduction of health warnings followed by the banning of cinema and press advertising. Now the government is looking at following the Australians and introducing standardized plain packaging for all cigarette brands.

The tobacco industry not surprisingly is up in arms. While most people seem to think that it won't make a jot of difference, the fag makers fear the worst. Packaging is, after all, the last vestige of sophistication that this industry can cling on to. If this goes, then surely cigarettes will be sunk forever. Personally, I think they do have grounds for worrying, because image for this lot has always been everything. Though health warnings are now emblazoned in large type, the packaging still looks and feels classy, desirable and expensive; that's because it is. Silk varnishes, foil blocking and embossing, along with the services of leading design agencies, don't come cheap.

Way back in the 80s when I first became interested in advertising, I remember visiting Collette Dickenson Pearce in the Euston Road and being shown the agency showreel on the agency's very own big screen. If memory serves me right there were two cinema commercials for cigarettes. One for Benson and Hedges was shot by Ridley Scott in the Arizona Desert, and featured frogmen opening a giant sardine tin-like cigarette pack in a swimming pool. It was part of the award-winning surreal campaign that never failed to silence popcorn munching audiences at the local flea-pit. The other was equally effective: an amusing spoof testimonial set amid the battle of Rorke's Drift with zulus and redcoats being speared left, right and centre. They were brilliantly effective ads because they made the brands captivating, witty and sophisticated. To young audiences, cigarettes were clearly shown to be cool. And the sales figures corroborated this.

Since the banning of cigarette advertising, the number of teen smokers in the UK has halved. It's a pretty impressive statistic. The anti-smoking lobby believes firmly that this has everything to do with the advertising ban. There are those representing the pro-smoking lobby though who will tell you otherwise. They'll argue that it has more to do with education and the fact that we're all so much better off than we used to be. I don't believe this for a moment. Tobacco companies spent millions on advertising and packaging because they knew full well that it guaranteed their future by making cigarettes look sophisticated to the young.

Interestingly, my 18-year-old daughter takes the view that placing cigarettes in plain brown packaging will give them a kind of cult status in the same way as any banned substances will appeal to those who want to stick two fingers up at the establishment. I suppose it's just possible, but I can't see this having mass appeal. 

I think if I were the minister for health I'd ban the use of the word 'cigarettes' and insist that fag makers used the term 'cancer sticks' instead.

Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds