Help for the Helpers

The eleven-year-old thalidomide war (TIME, Jan. 22) may finally be over. This month the giant Distillers Co. Ltd. made a new offer of more than $50 million in compensation to the parents of the 398 British children who were born deformed after their mothers took the tranquilizer. The parents are expected to accept the settlement--one of the largest multipayouts in medical history.

Distillers, which marketed thalidomide in Britain through a pharmaceutical subsidiary until 1961, has agreed to pay $12,500 to each set of parents in consideration of their suffering and expenses. A lump sum of $15 million will be distributed to 340 of the children who were not part of a 1968 settlement involving 58 children. In addition, $35 million will be paid into a charitable trust for all the children in seven yearly installments of $5,000,000. As a protection against possible erosion by inflation, there is an escalation clause that could increase each payment by 10%. To the individual child, the proposed settlement will be worth between $250,000 and $375,000. The amount of payment will be determined by the extent of physical disability, which will be assessed by a panel of medical experts appointed by the Royal College of Surgeons.

The improved settlement proposal (Distillers had initially offered $6,000,000) was a personal victory for David Mason, a London art dealer whose ten-year-old daughter was born crippled because of the drug. Mason had to contend with not only Distillers but scores of other angry thalidomide parents who wanted to take the company's earlier offers. As a result of his holding out for a larger settlement, Mason received abusive phone calls, bomb threats, and was even punched while walking in London. The new offer by Distillers was also a triumph for the London Sunday Times, which risked a contempt of court citation to publicize the parents' dilemma.

Distillers will hardly be bled by the payments, which for tax purposes can be subtracted from its gross profits--an income that last year amounted to some $150 million. Britain's corporate-tax rate (50%) will automatically halve the company's net payout, and tax concessions for the establishment of the trust fund will reduce the sum even more.

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