Home Library Translate
A A A
Share »
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on LinkedIn
Connect »

Blog: Crisis Management

Menu

  • This Blog's Home
  • Guest Writer Submissions
  • Policies
  • To Subscribe to a Blog
  • About
  • Feedback

Thalidomide: a 50-Year Crisis

By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on September 4, 2012

When lawyers write the corporate apology

Editor’s Note: The following guest article by crisis management pro Tony Jaques is the perfect companion to Jerry Brown’s post, “Skip the Spin,” which you can find on the Bernstein Crisis Management blog. Combined, they present a powerful statement on the dangers that emerge when we indulge the temptation to spin the truth.

It was another one of those “what were they thinking” moments. For more than 50 years the German makers of Thalidomide, Greunenthal, remained silent about the ten thousand plus babies born with severe deformities after their mothers took the morning-sickness drug.

In an extraordinary move, Harald Stock, CEO of Greunenthal, then rather bizarrely chose the unveiling of a statue symbolising a child born without limbs erected at the company’s German headquarters to issue what the BBC called the drug-maker’s first apology in 50 years.

It was a critical moment in a prolonged crisis. But the company statement showed every sign of having been carefully crafted by lawyers concerned more with legal liability than compassion.

“We ask for forgiveness that for nearly 50 years we didn’t find a way of reaching out to you from human being to human being,” Mr Stock said.

“We ask that you regard our long silence as a sign of the shock that your fate caused in us.

“We wish that the thalidomide tragedy had never happened. We see both the physical hardship and the emotional stress that the affected, their families and particularly their mothers, had to suffer because of thalidomide and still have to endure day by day.”

It was statement sure to annoy and certain not to satisfy, especially when the company restated its long-held position that damage to unborn fetuses could not be detected by tests carried out before thalidomide was marketed from 1953 to 1961.

British Thalidomide campaigners called the statement insulting and insincere, and declared that an apology should also admit wrongdoing. And from a strategic perspective one obvious question is why the company made the statement at all.

The most telling response probably came from Australian mother Wendy Rowe, whose daughter Lynne recently received a multi-million payout from distributor Diageo.

“It’s the sort of apology you give when you’re not really sorry,” she said.

“I suspect he (Mr. Stock) might not know what shock is. Shock is having your precious child born without arms and legs. It’s accepting that your child is not going to have the life that you wanted for her.”

“Our family couldn’t have gone into silent shock. We had to get up and face each and every day and cope with the incredible damage that Gruenenthal had done to Lynne and our family.”

Mrs Rowe’s eloquent statement should stand as a reminder to corporate communicators and lawyers that apologies should actually be apologetic.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

Tony Jaques manages an Australian-based issue and crisis management consultancy and writes the regular newsletter Managing Outcomes

« Previous Next »

Search Our Site

Meet this Blog’s Co-Hosts

Jonathan L. Bernstein, founder and Chairman of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of crisis management – crisis response, vulnerability assessment, planning, training and simulations.[Read more ...]


Erik Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management. Erik started with BCM in 2009 as a writer and subsequently became social media manager for the consultancy itself as well as for a number of BCM clients before moving to the president position. [Read more ...]

Recent Blog Posts

  • Digital and Online Now Main Source Of News
  • Are You Prepared For 2021? New Crisis Management Survey Out Now
  • Crisis Preparedness and Response Is About To Get Tougher
  • How to Create a Crisis Management Plan to Respond to a Cyber Breach
  • Audi’s ‘Insensitive Ad’, or Why you always ask how else an image could be interpreted.
  • The Road To Crisis Recovery
  • Preparing DURING The Pandemic
  • Coronavirus: What You CAN Control
  • Southwest’s COVID-19 Crisis Communications And What You Need To Be Doing
  • Crisis Manager On The Spot…Quick Coronavirus Crisis Communications Tips

Categories of Posts

  • Avoid the Apology
  • college crises
  • communications
  • conflict resolution
  • Crisis Assessment
  • Crisis Avoidance
  • crisis communications
  • crisis management
  • Crisis Management Quotables
  • crisis planning
  • crisis preparedness
  • Crisis Prevention
  • crisis public relations
  • Crisis Response
  • crisis training
  • customer service
  • cyber attacks
  • cyber bullying
  • cybersecurity
  • data breach
  • Dealing With Media
  • Digital Media Law Project
  • disaster crisis management
  • disaster prevention
  • Disaster Response
  • disease crisis management
  • emergency management
  • Erik Bernstein
  • ethics
  • Facebook
  • food industry crisis management
  • hackers
  • hacking
  • Higher Education
  • hospitality
  • HR
  • information security
  • Internal Communications
  • internet crisis management
  • internet security
  • Jonathan Bernstein
  • Journalistic ethics
  • Law
  • Litigation PR
  • litigation-related crisis management
  • Media Relations
  • media training
  • online crisis management
  • Online Reputation Management
  • political crisis management
  • PR
  • preventable crises
  • privacy breach
  • privacy violation
  • Public Relations
  • recall crisis management
  • Reputation Management
  • Risk Management
  • SEO
  • social media
  • social media crisis management
  • social media policy
  • social media reputation management
  • sports crisis management
  • violence prevention
  • vulnerability audit
  • Weiner Awards
  • workplace violence

Blogroll

  • Bernstein Crisis Management Blog
  • Jonathan Bernstein's HuffPost Blog
  • The Crisis Show

Related Library Topics

  • Assessments
  • Business Insurance
  • Computer Security
  • Coordinating Activities
  • Crisis Management
  • Employment Laws
  • Ethical Analysis
  • Lawyers (Using)
  • Managing Change
  • Marketing
  • Media Relations
  • Organizational Communications
  • Planning
  • Public Relations
  • Risk Management
  • Safety in Workplace
  • Bernstein Crisis Management Blog

Library's Blogs

  • Boards of Directors
  • Building a Business
  • Business Communications
  • Business Ethics, Culture and Performance
  • Business Planning
  • Career Management
  • Coaching and Action Learning
  • Consulting and Organizational Development
  • Crisis Management
  • Customer Service
  • Facilitation
  • Free Management Library Blogs
  • Fundraising for Nonprofits
  • Human Resources
  • Leadership
  • Marketing and Social Media
  • Nonprofit Capacity Building
  • Project Management
  • Quality Management
  • Social Enterprise
  • Spirituality
  • Strategic Planning
  • Supervision
  • Team Building and Performance
  • Training and Development
About Feedback Legal Privacy Policy Contact Us
Free Management Library, © Copyright Authenticity Consulting, LLC ®; All rights reserved.
  • Graphics by Wylde Hare LLC
  • Website maintained by Caitlin Cahill

By continuing to use this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy.X