subject: 28.5 Million Personal Injury Claim [print this page] Australasian victims have won 28.5 million in the latest personal injury compensation deal from Diageo, the British drug manufactuer.
The claimants were thalidomide victims, who were originally compensated in the 1970s but the funds ran out. As a result of persistent campaigning by Ken Youdale, the Diageo group agreed to pay about nearly A$3m a year for the next twenty years to the remaining thalidomide victims.
This latest compensation package is in addiction to a 20 million support package that was put together by the British government last December, to help those survivors.
Ken Youdales daughter was one of thousands that was affected by the drug. After persistent campaigning, Mr. Youdale was able to meet with the drug company.
I was able to say: Look, this is actually what its costing these people to live today, where do you think theyre getting the money to go on from? However, are they going to get more money? Its impossible, you just have to help, Mr Youdale said.
Peter Gordon, the Australian class-action lawyer who acted for the victims, remarked:
It is certainly true that every one of the beneficiaries for whom Diageo provided released them from any common law obligation years ago so these payments were entirely an act of grace borne out of a sense of corporate social responsibility,
Having worked as a class-action lawyer on other big cases - Vioxx, asbestos, medically-acquired HIV litigation, breast implant litigation - Ive never seen a company act with this level of engagement and sense of ethics.
Thalidomide was an accidental creation, and was actually found to be an effective tranquilliser. But what appeared to be a harmless drug was actually producing horrible deformities in the children of mothers who had taken the drug while being pregnant.
by: Antonia Torr
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