Thalidomide had an early comeback in Brazil. In 1965 the Brazilian government re-introduced the drug for the treatment of leprosy. It was only available on prescription, still often handed out without the necessary restrictive controls in many parts of the country, leading to a high number of new Thalidomide cases, the so called second and third generation.

In 1993 a BBC television team reported on the new Thalidomide babies from Brazil. They were describing how mothers had taken the drug because they thought it was a form of birth control or they were afraid to be socially marginalized because of their leprosy.

Source: Chronology of events provided by Beate Kirk, in: Der Conterganfall: eine unvermeidbare Arzneimittelkatastrophe? Dissertation. Greifswald 1998.