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Mr Conway, a resumee of the facts would be warmly appreciated & a signature,or more, then likely forthcoming.
Meanwhile, you have prompted two, no three, immediate thoughts for this discussion:

1. The principle of Access to Justice is under attack from every corner of the wellheeled moneymaking Ruling Class that is!
We are to be unable to defend ourselves with Legal Aid, or Mackenzie Friend, unable to sue the Government, and now unable to sue the Pharmaceuticals too!!
Who next?

2.The Drugs Company Lobby seems to enjoy persuasive sway over those of legislative function. The least cynical would say perhaps as a result of optimum timing, almost resembling undue influence, as in these times of much public fear & personal grief : Lord Saatchi, as above & even Cameron now lobbying for quick licenses to facilitate potential Ebola "cures" -a well-timed coincidence?

3. Thalidomide:
As a 1960s baby who escaped tragedy, did anyone else read Harold Evans' Saturday Guardian article, about the ongoing horror that was, & is, Thalidomide?
If not, find it, consume it!

The least of it is the continuing tragedy of unaccounted criminal corporate negligence: the German criminal trial was apparently aborted, traded off for an insubstantial compensation fund paid for by the German taxpayer, as a result of blatant political interference in judicial process, as revealed by recent archive research.

The continuing injustice of the horror is revealed more recently by the Spanish High Court overthrowing a successful Dec 2013 liability judgment for the 200-odd unrecompensed plaintiffs. The Spanish High Court reasoned that the claim was stale, due to delay, knowing that the charity Avite (apologies if I may have misquoted) would be unable to fund an appeal, its members sitting on Madrid street corners, mostly without limbs, selling "!La Quiniela, para hoy!"-a lottery ticket for a future full of promise that yet escapes them.

The most shameful for me, (my mother a Spanish catholic cancer death statistic), was the news that the Thalidomide company owner's heir has just been bestowed, by the hitherto reputedly enlightened & liberal Pope Francis I, with the highest papal honour, the Order of St Stephen, or perhaps it was St.Sebastian , I recall not, the mist of outrage & shame too overwhelming.

Read the Harold Evans' article, Lord Saatchi, everyone!
Reference to the employment of Third Reich scientists by a company that had originally sold soap, before concocting & selling drugs post WW2, apparently ignorant that any transference from mother to foetus occurred (!), & analogy drawn to Nazi human experimentation, may yet prompt concern, & increasing petition, in the unlikely event that none of the above caused alarm.

It seems to me that even the Pharmaceuticals should be accountable, Double Jeopardy accountable, for negligence,particularly criminal negligence, ad infinitum, as are we !

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