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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 ...
In the 1960s, Dr. Isabel Gal conducted research at Queen Mary's Hospital for Children that showed a link between use of the drug and severe birth defects. [5] A review by the Committee on Safety of Medicines in the 1970s concluded that the product should not be used by pregnant women. [2]
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]
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).
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]
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 ...
Thalidomide was once prescribed therapeutically from the 1950s to early 1960s in Europe as an anti-nausea medication to alleviate morning sickness among pregnant women. While the exact mechanism of action of thalidomide is not known, it is thought to be related to inhibition of angiogenesis through interaction with the insulin like growth ...
Thalidomide was used as treatment for cancers, leprosy and HIV, however, the drug was extensively used for the treatment of nausea in pregnant women in the late 1950s and early 1960s until it became apparent in the 1960s that it resulted in severe birth defects.