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Feet of a baby born to a mother who had taken thalidomide while pregnant. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the use of thalidomide in 46 countries was prescribed to women who were pregnant or who subsequently became pregnant, and consequently resulted in the "biggest anthropogenic medical disaster ever," with more than 10,000 children born with a range of severe deformities, such as ...
Thalidomide is a known human teratogen and carries an extremely high risk of severe, life-threatening birth defects if administered or taken during pregnancy. [6] It causes skeletal deformities such as amelia (absence of legs and/or arms), absence of bones, and phocomelia (malformation of the limbs).
DES gained notoriety when it was shown to cause a rare vaginal tumor in girls and young women who had been exposed to this drug in utero.In 1971, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report showing that seven of eight girls and young women (ages 14 to 22) who had been diagnosed with vaginal clear cell adenocarcinoma had been exposed prenatally to DES. [5]
Phocomelia is a congenital condition that involves malformations of human arms and legs which result in a flipper-like appendage. [1] [2] A prominent cause of phocomelia is the mother being prescribed the use of the drug thalidomide during pregnancy; however, the causes of most cases are to be determined.
Thalidomide caused severe birth defects, miscarriages, and other severe health problems. Though these side effects were proven conclusively in 1959, [2] and 1962, [3] Grünenthal continued marketing the drug well into the 1970s and 1980s. [4] The company generates more than 50 percent of its income with pain medications such as Tramadol. The ...
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McBride published a letter in The Lancet, in December 1961, noting a large number of birth defects in children of patients who were prescribed thalidomide, [9] after a midwife named Sister Pat Sparrow first suspected the drug was causing birth defects in the babies of patients under his care at Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney. [10]
More factors causing developmental toxicity are radiation, infections (e.g. rubella), maternal metabolic imbalances (e.g. alcoholism, diabetes, folic acid deficiency), drugs (e.g. anticancer drugs, tetracyclines, many hormones, thalidomide), and environmental chemicals (e.g. mercury, lead, dioxins, PBDEs, HBCD, tobacco smoke).In addition, it is ...