The sleeping pill Contergan was sold in Germany from 1 October 1957 to 27 November 1961. Under the drug law of the time, a manufacturer only had to register a new medicine. In 1961 the Hamburg doctor Widukind Lenz and others linked Contergan to severe malformations in newborn children. Other sources speak of about 4,000 affected children in Germany. After the scandal, Germany rewrote its drug law. The new law came into force at the start of 1978. Since then a medicine may be approved only after proof of its quality, its efficacy and its safety. The manufacturer, Grünenthal, apologized only in August 2012, at the unveiling of a memorial in its home town of Stolberg. Its managing director Harald Stock asked forgiveness that for 50 years the company had not found its way to the victims von Mensch zu Mensch, from person to person. Stattdessen haben wir geschwiegen. (Instead, we kept silent.) Victims’ associations criticized that the apology spoke only about the company’s lack of communication.