Thalidomide Disaster 1962 – Babies with Seal-Like Limbs

TIME  magazine, in its issue of 10 August 1962, expressed growing fears as babies continued to be born with phocomelia, or "seal-like limbs" resembling flippers. 

"The horrifying reports keep  coming in. So far... nearly 8000 babies have been born with deformities because their mothers took the sleeping drug and sedative called thalidomide. This is the greatest prescription disaster in medical history." 

The long bones in the babies' arms did not develop. Sometimes fingers emerged from their shoulders.

In 1957, the German pharmaceutical company Grünenthal introduced thalidomide as a sedative, painkiller, sleep aid and treatment for nausea. Pregnant women used thalidomide to relieve morning sickness. However, in 1961, Australian obstetrician William McBride and German paediatrician Widukind Lenz investigated the increasing number of babies with seal-like limbs and warned that thalidomide was the cause.

Although thalidomide had come into use worldwide, Americans were fortunate. Dr Frances Kelsey of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had refused to approve thalidomide for use in the United States, believing that it had not been adequately tested in pregnant women and that its effectiveness had not been demonstrated. As a result of the thalidomide disaster, in 1962 the United States enacted laws requiring safety testing during pregnancy before a drug could be approved.

Alongside the horrors of thalidomide, researchers began to discover some beneficial uses for the drug in fields entirely different from its original purpose.

• When it was given to patients with severe skin inflammation associated with leprosy, patients often experienced a striking pain-relieving effect. 
• Thalidomide was also found to be useful in treating multiple myeloma, a cancer affecting certain white blood cells.

Today, women in the United States must undergo periodic pregnancy tests and take measures to prevent pregnancy in order to be treated with thalidomide. Because thalidomide has anti-inflammatory effects and also inhibits the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis), many potential conditions may benefit from thalidomide treatment.

Description of the article image: Severe cases of phocomelia caused by thalidomide.

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey (b. 1914), Widukind Lenz (1919–1995), William Griffith McBride (b. 1927)

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