Thalidomide is 50 years old now

It is 50 years since thalidomide was first introduced on to the UK market as a cure for morning sickness. Those affected by the drug are still fighting for compensation - while others are fighting to access the drug.

Some 10,000 babies were born with deformities after their mothers took the drug - sometimes just once - while pregnant.

The majority were born in Germany, where the pill was invented. Apparently a wonder drug, it was initially seen as a good news story in a country rebuilding itself after the devastation of war.

But the high was short-lived. By 1961, it had been withdrawn from sale after evidence of severe side-effects. The company involved, Grunenthal, paid just over 100m deutschmarks - the equivalent of about £100m in today's money - into a compensation fund for those affected.

Nothing has gone in since: for many decades the firm argued that it had paid more than its dues and was, back then, operating in a completely different scientific and regulatory climate.

It is however currently in talks to make a new, "voluntary" payment to survivors - mainly the German ones who were exposed to the drug supplied directly by the company. It says it has no responsibility for those whose mothers bought the pill from other firms who at the time held the license.

But an international coalition of thalidomide victims, including some of the UK's 457 survivors, says this is not good enough. They want one million euros (around £750,000) each from Grunenthal and the German government, to be paid out over 10 years.

Nothing has gone in since: for many decades the firm argued that it had paid more than its dues and was, back then, operating in a completely different scientific and regulatory climate.

It is however currently in talks to make a new, "voluntary" payment to survivors - mainly the German ones who were exposed to the drug supplied directly by the company. It says it has no responsibility for those whose mothers bought the pill from other firms who at the time held the license.

But an international coalition of thalidomide victims, including some of the UK's 457 survivors, says this is not good enough. They want one million euros (around £750,000) each from Grunenthal and the German government, to be paid out over 10 years.