At the unveiling of a thalidomide memorial, a limbless child’s statue in bronze, in the Rhineland town of Stolberg on Friday, Harald Stock – CEO of thalidomide drug’s German manufacturer, the Grünenthal Group – extended an apology to the victims of thalidomide, which led to birth defects in thousands of children in the 1950s and 60s.

The apology, the first ever from the German manufacturer in over five decades, met with an infuriated rejection from the thalidomide-affected families who felt that the rather ‘insulting’ apology had not only come ‘too late’, but was not ‘too little.’

Morning sickness drug thalidomide was marketed by the family-owned Grünenthal Group, in the 1950s and early 1960s. However, the drug was withdrawn in 1961 after widespread reports that its use led to birth defects, including shortened arms and legs, and – in some cases – no limbs at all.

With the campaigners having protested over the years that thalidomide affected 10,000 babies across the world – largely in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan -, the apology extended by Stock was widely slammed as ‘not enough’ to assuage decades of anger and hurt that had built up while campaigning for a full acknowledgment of the drug’s harm, and for a generous compensation.

In his apology speech, Stock tried to appease thalidomide victims and families by saying that the company would like to “apologize for the fact that we have not found the way to you from person to person for almost 50 years,” and added: “We have been silent, and we are very sorry for that.”