Kiwi drug victim sought for $1m payout

Thalidomide caused 12,000 birth defects worldwide. Photo / Wikimedia Commons

A Melbourne lawyer is looking for New Zealander Craig Phillips to tell him he is in line for a million-dollar windfall.

Lawyer Peter Gordon has so far found 10 people of that name in New Zealand and more than 100 in Australia - but is yet to find the right man, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The hunt for the "right" Craig began in secret this year when the people who this week secured a A$50 million ($61.74 million) ex gratia payment for Australian and New Zealand thalidomide victims started compiling a list of recipients.

They were working from the list of teenagers who in 1974 had received a modest compensation payment from the British firm that marketed the morning sickness drug that caused thousands of extreme birth defects around the world in 1961 and 1962.

The 49 original Australian and New Zealand recipients had shrunk to 46 because three had died. But one of the 10 New Zealanders who received a payment in the 1970s - Craig Phillips - is missing.

A longtime thalidomide activist Ken Youdale, who engineered the A$50 million coup with Mr Gordon, is confident Mr Phillips has not died since the 1970s. But so far his efforts to find the man have failed.

The search for Mr Phillips will continue until his whereabouts, or his fate, are established. Meanwhile, Mr Youdale and Mr Gordon are looking for any other potential claimants.

They believe it is likely there are more handicapped people born in 1961 or 1962 whose disabilities are due to thalidomide, but were never told the truth.

Thalidomide, originally used for morning sickness in pregnant women, caused 12,000 birth defects worldwide.

There were about 10 or 11 survivors known in New Zealand, and about 35 Australians.

The compensation was a goodwill gesture from Diageo after settlements in the 1970s ended the company's legal obligations to victims.

- NZPA