Mouth-stick used by mouth painting artists, including Tom Yendell, who is living with impairments caused by the compound thalidomide, made 2009

Tom is an artist, campaigner and Trustee of Trustee for The Education And Book Appeal: Ghana (TEABAG Charity) where he built a vocational skills college. He uses watercolour, acrylic and silk paints and has been a member of the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (MFPA) since 1996, seven years after obtaining an Honours Degree in Expressive Arts from Brighton University. He is married to Lucy and they have two children, Joseph and Holly.

Tom is living with impairments caused by thalidomide, one of at least 500 people born in Britain. Thalidomide was a compound found in drugs prescribed to people in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although today it is associated primarily as a treatment for pregnancy related nausea, it was also prescribed to anyone experiencing symptoms of colds, flu, headaches, anxiety, and insomnia. Thalidomide causes nerve damage in the hands and feet of adults, but when taken in early pregnancy it causes impairments such as limb difference, sight loss, hearing loss, facial paralysis, and impact to internal organs. One tablet is enough to cause significant impairments. Researchers later identified that there was a link between the impairment a person is living with, and which day of the pregnancy thalidomide was taken. UK distributors withdrew the drug in 1961 and a government warning was issued in May 1962.