It’s the summer season of 1962, and the drug thalidomide has been off the market in Europe for months after it was decided to be unsafe to make use of throughout being pregnant. However within the U.S., individuals are solely simply starting to search out out concerning the scandal. The Washington Publish breaks the story and places an image of Meals and Drug Administration medical expert Frances Oldham Kelsey, who refused to approve the treatment, on the entrance web page. She’s the hero who saved American lives.
President John F. Kennedy offers her a medal, and her picture is splashed throughout newspapers across the nation. In the meantime, on the finish of the earlier yr, Richardson-Merrell, the corporate that wished to promote thalidomide within the U.S., had made a half-hearted try and contact a few of the docs who had been given tens of millions of thalidomide samples for so-called scientific trials. Simply what number of pregnant individuals might need thalidomide of their drugs cupboard?
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TRANSCRIPT
President John F. Kennedy: Latest occasions on this nation and overseas regarding the results of a brand new sedative referred to as thalidomide emphasize once more the urgency of offering further safety to American customers from dangerous or nugatory drug merchandise…
Katie Hafner: In July, 1962, an editor at “The Washington Publish” referred to as a reporter named Morton Mintz over to his desk. The Publish had gotten a tip. About an astonishing story.
There was a drug referred to as thalidomide that was suspected of injuring 1000’s of infants in Europe. And the drug had been withdrawn from the market in Germany and the U.Ok. eight months earlier. However by some means, by the summer season of 1962, most People nonetheless knew nothing about this. And 1000’s of them had been taking the drug, utterly unaware of its risks to pregnant ladies — that’s, till July 15, the day The Washington Publish put Morton Mintz’s story on the entrance web page. The headline: “Heroine’ of FDA Retains Dangerous Drug off Market.” And there, proper above the fold, was {a photograph} of that very heroine: Frances Oldham Kelsey.
The story was shortly picked up by newspapers throughout the nation. And a whole lot of People studying that article over their breakfast might need thought, properly, this story doesn’t have that a lot to do with me. As a result of the best way Mintz advised it, this was a story of tragedy for Europe, the place 1000’s of infants had been injured by this drug thalidomide. And it was a story of triumph for the USA, the place the drug was by no means accepted, because of FDA medical reviewer Frances Kelsey.
However that was just the start of the story.
Right here’s Jennifer Vanderbes, creator of “Surprise Drug”:
Jennifer Vanderbes: This hits the entrance web page and it is the one purpose why you possibly can say the phrase thalidomide at this time in the USA and anybody of a sure era truly is aware of that title due to that article. That was it. That was the pivot level. Every part type of spins from that.
Katie Hafner: I’m Katie Hafner, and that is the fourth chapter of “The Satan within the Particulars” from “Misplaced Girls of Science.” This season is about Frances Oldham Kelsey, the physician who stated ‘no’ to thalidomide. In at this time’s episode: Frances Kelsey, reluctant famous person — and why it took so rattling lengthy for the thalidomide story to succeed in the U.S.
Within the days after The Washington Publish article got here out, Frances Kelsey went from unusual civil servant to nationwide hero in a single day, giving interviews on main networks, like this one on NBC in August 1962.
NBC Interviewer: Nicely, Dr. Kelsey, uh, this can be a foolish query, I suppose, however how does it really feel to somebody such as you to abruptly turn out to be a star, a heroine along with your finger within the dike?
Frances Kelsey: Nicely, it isn’t the same old, uh, scenario we discover ourselves in Meals and Drug.
NBC Interviewer: Nicely, you appear to be doing very properly. What’s your wage? I do know this can be a matter of public report.
Frances Kelsey: I am a GS, uh, 14, high of grade, and I get 13,550 a yr.
Katie Hafner: Her daughter Christine remembers that reporters would come to the Kelsey family to take photos of the household…
Christine Kelsey: They might set us up in these unusual poses that we simply wouldn’t have usually been in. Stand right here on both facet of your mom, women. Look lovingly. My mother and father refused, or mother refused, they stated, every of you kiss her on the cheek. No, we’re not doing that. Not gonna occur. So not like something that we might ever have completed. And what they had been attempting to say was, oh, mom saves the world type of factor.
Katie Hafner: Christine was a pre-teen, and her older sister, Susan, was a full-blown teenager by this level. So, clearly, they discovered this entire scenario mortifying.
After which there have been the letters….
Christine Kelsey: Packing containers and containers. We had containers of letters. They got here to our home like a dozen a day.
Katie Hafner: From senators and different docs and journalists eager to interview her… but in addition from unusual individuals writing to thank her… or inform her about their medical considerations. They included photos of their households. Some individuals despatched checks (which, by the best way, she didn’t maintain). And she or he took the time to write down to as lots of them as attainable. Even simply children writing college experiences about her. Frances tried to reply all their questions. Christine says that was simply a part of her upbringing. If somebody writes to you, you write them again!
However amid all this nationwide pleasure about Frances Kelsey, there was this large unanswered query: if docs in Germany and Britain knew at the least as early as November 1961 that thalidomide was suspected of inflicting extreme accidents to embryos and if the drug had been pulled off the market over there exactly due to this hazard, why had been People solely simply studying about that now, in the summertime of 1962?
Nicely, to reply that, we have to return to those key couple of days within the fall of 1961. On November 29, Grünenthal – that’s the German firm that developed thalidomide and was licensing it on the market all around the world – alerts Merrell – that’s the American firm that wishes to promote it within the U.S— that it’s pulling the drug from the market in Germany. The following day, November thirtieth, Merrell’s FDA liaison, Joseph Murray, calls Frances Kelsey on the FDA to cross on the information.
Murray tells Frances they’ve heard from the German producer that thalidomide causes delivery malformations and that the corporate is withdrawing it from the German market. He provides that he hopes that is all simply an unlucky coincidence, however that Merrell is sending a consultant to Germany to search out out extra. However – and right here’s the odd factor – Merrell doesn’t withdraw its software for Kevadon, its thalidomide drug.
Jennifer Vanderbes: It is attention-grabbing, I imply, of the numerous irresponsible issues completed alongside the best way. The type of concrete information that the inventor and licensor of the drug in Germany removes it utterly from the market due to documented considerations that it is inflicting delivery defects. And Merrell within the U. S. doesn’t withdraw their software.
Katie Hafner: Over the subsequent few days (now we’re in December 1961), Merrell sends letters to Canadian and American docs telling them to not give this drug to pregnant ladies, or these nonetheless of their child-bearing years.
Jennifer Vanderbes: They ship a number of, I will name them gentle letters principally saying that they are not alarmed, , that is what’s occurred, , perhaps proceed cautiously. However they do not ship it to all their investigators, and they are not involved with the truth that these investigators gave it to different docs.
Katie Hafner: Within the U.S., the letter went out to 37 docs. You heard it. Of the 1200 plus docs Merrell had given the drug to, the corporate wrote letters to thirty-seven. These had been the one docs listed in Merrell’s Kevadon software, and due to this fact the one ones the FDA knew about.
Jennifer Vanderbes: So sure, you have got months and months and months go by the place this drug remains to be freely circulating. The general public has no thought. Most docs do not know. This story has been resolved by all accounts in Europe, however in the USA this drug remains to be, , zipping round from physician’s workplace to physician’s workplace and being handed to ladies and it is completely bonkers to suppose what number of months that went on. It wasn’t a matter of weeks. It was months.
Katie Hafner: However so far as Frances Kelsey knew, Merrell had completed what it was purported to do. The corporate discovered its drug would possibly be dangerous. The corporate instantly notified the FDA. And Merrell stated it had additionally notified the docs it had despatched the drug to. (In fact, Frances had no manner of understanding that this wasn’t true.) And Merrell couldn’t go one step additional and withdraw the drug from the market as a result of it wasn’t available on the market. The FDA had by no means accepted it within the first place.
So, in early 1962, Merrell and the FDA had been nonetheless on this bizarre, acquainted holding sample: ready for scientific proof, information that might both exonerate or additional implicate thalidomide.
Three months handed. Nothing. However then, in early March, Merrell abruptly withdrew its software for Kevadon, and it additionally withdrew the drug from the Canadian market, the place Merrell had already been promoting Kevadon for nearly a yr.
In a letter to the German producer, a Merrell govt described this resolution to drag the drug from the Canadian market as stemming from an abundance of warning, , a short lived pause whereas they sorted this out and discovered whether or not this hyperlink to delivery abnormalities was actual. It makes it sound like Merrell had, of its personal volition, lastly completed the accountable factor. When in actual fact, the Canadian Meals and Drug Directorate had requested Merrell to withdraw the drug. In any case, Merrell did take motion at that time, placing all the things on maintain in each Canada and the US till it had extra data.
And that was wonderful by Frances Kelsey. Once more, so far as she knew, there was nothing extra that wanted to be completed.
She was about to study simply how incorrect that was. Only a few weeks later, in April 1962, the FDA obtained a disturbing telephone name. It was from a famend heart specialist named Helen Taussig.
Right here’s historian Cheryl Warsh:
Cheryl Warsh: She was working at Johns Hopkins, the top of the pediatric cardiac clinic.
Katie Hafner: Dr. Taussig was a pioneer within the subject of pediatric cardiology. So when a former pupil of Taussig’s discovered about this epidemic affecting infants in Europe – an epidemic that damage their hearts, he advised Dr. Taussig about it. That was a number of months earlier, in January of 1962.
And he advised her about how docs suspected a drug referred to as thalidomide was in charge.
Cheryl Warsh: Nevertheless it wasn’t public information within the States what occurred. That is the place Dr. Taussig is available in.
Katie Hafner: After she heard about what was taking place in Europe, Taussig instantly went there to analyze the scenario, and when she returned residence six weeks later, it was with a profound sense of urgency. What was taking place in Europe was a catastrophe. And folks in the USA wanted to find out about it, to ensure it didn’t occur right here too. So Dr. Taussig referred to as up a unique former pupil of hers (that’s the factor about these tutorial physicians…they’ve former college students all over), and this pupil labored on the FDA now and she or he invited him and Frances Kelsey to return go to her at residence.
Cheryl Warsh: She advised them the story of what she noticed, and she or he stated it was an excellent thought that you just did not let this drug into the U.S. as a result of that is what’s taking place in Europe.
Katie Hafner: Up till this level, all Merrell had advised Frances Kelsey concerning the hyperlink between thalidomide and the congenital malformations was that the information was inconclusive. And the knowledge Frances had obtained indicated that the drug had been bought for a number of years in Europe earlier than any subject with infants arose. However Helen Taussig advised her that wasn’t true.
Taussig knew of an affected child born at the least as early as 1959, and had seen information displaying a speedy rise in instances yearly after that. A number of elements pointed to thalidomide. Painstaking histories of the moms in these instances normally revealed they’d taken the drug, and there gave the impression to be the next incidence among the many kids of Grünenthal’s workers. In the meantime, Taussig reported that the kids of American servicemen gave the impression to be unaffected – US military hospitals didn’t use the drug.
Katie Hafner: Helen Taussig estimated that as many as 6,000 infants had been affected in Germany. And greater than a thousand in different nations. However the true quantity wouldn’t be identified till the summer season of 1962, as a result of bear in mind, there have been ladies who had taken thalidomide earlier than it was taken off the market and had but to present delivery.
For Frances Kelsey, thalidomide was not only a shoddy drug software with unanswered questions. And it wasn’t an summary risk. What Helen Taussig had proven her satisfied her that thalidomide was harmful. And if any of this drug was floating round someplace within the U.S., Merrell had higher make certain it didn’t attain pregnant sufferers.
One factor that has struck me engaged on this story is simply how a lot it takes – or took, again then – to get a nation’s consideration. The article in The Washington Publish that advised People about thalidomide – that got here out in July of 1962. And folks had been understandably shocked and upset. People like Sherri Chessen, the youngsters’ TV presenter we met within the first episode, who had taken thalidomide, discovered for the very first time that it could be harming their infants.
However “The Washington Publish” article wasn’t truly the primary to share the story of thalidomide with People. There have been a number of articles in American publications earlier than that. One got here out in December 1961, just some weeks after Grünenthal withdrew the drug. That one was in a medical periodical, so it’s comprehensible if that article didn’t attain a wider public.
However the subsequent articles weren’t in obscure publications. In February 1962, the thalidomide disaster made the pages of TIME journal. And the article couldn’t have been clearer. The headline was this: “Sleeping Tablet Nightmare.” The article stated this sleeping tablet, thalidomide, was quote, “accused of inflicting many hideous malformations in infants.” It listed the model names of the drug in Germany, the UK and the U.S. I repeat – AND THE U.S. However…this text didn’t appear to register with many individuals. TIME talked about thalidomide but once more in an article in March.
After which, just some weeks after that, on April 12, 1962, but one other article got here out, this one in The New York Occasions, reporting on Dr. Helen Taussig’s findings in Europe.
Cheryl Warsh: Helen Taussig, after she speaks to the FDA individuals, she decides that she has to guarantee that each doctor in America and the federal government is aware of about this drug and avoids it. And guarantee that it by no means occurs once more.
Katie Hafner: Dr. Taussig argued that the USA might have met the identical destiny as Europe as a result of this drug might have handed the nation’s drug legal guidelines on the time. She urged for higher laws, ones that ensured medicine had been examined on pregnant animals.
Cheryl Warsh: So she’s positively on a mission. And she or he makes speeches to the American Medical Affiliation. She makes speeches to every kind of businesses, to colleges, universities.
The New York Occasions article was on web page 37 of the paper. And it looks as if lots of people missed it. So after a number of articles within the widespread press, months after the disaster turned public information in Europe, individuals within the U.S., by and enormous, nonetheless didn’t know what thalidomide was. A lot much less that they need to be searching for it. It could be one other few months earlier than Morton Mintz’s article within the Publish lastly broke by means of.
However one essential group of People did learn Helen Taussig’s plea for stricter drug regulation. Senator Estes Kefauver had been investigating pharmaceutical firms for value fixing and for years had been attempting to cross a drug reform invoice. Unsuccessfully.
Thalidomide might change that. Jennifer Vanderbes once more:
Jennifer Vanderbes: They hear the Thalidomide story, they understand, oh my gosh, , that is, that is actually sensational, proper? Now we have, this can be a large story. That is going to terrify individuals. They’ll lastly listen after a number of years of all people, the media, the general public, tuning out the drug invoice hearings. And abruptly this may get them.
Katie Hafner: However to essentially get individuals being attentive to this, they wanted hook. A personality who might push this subject into the general public consciousness.
Frances Kelsey, the general public servant who saved the American individuals from a harmful drug.
Cheryl Warsh: They usually leak the story to The Washington Publish.
Cheryl Warsh once more.
Cheryl Warsh: They are saying, this is the story of what occurred final yr and the way we had- thalidomide might have are available. And there was a reporter at The Washington Publish who was the science reporter. However the editors noticed this might be an explosive story and he is a extremely boring author. In order that they bought one other one by the title of Morton Mintz.
Katie Hafner: Morton Mintz was not a science reporter, he was a common task reporter. And he didn’t cowl the drug trade. However his editor on the Publish knew that he was the type of man who might kick up a righteous fury. And that’s precisely the power the paper wished on the Frances Kelsey story.
Jennifer Vanderbes: Morton Mintz is that this nice type of like old style, loves going after all people type of reporter, would not get scared, likes to find out about a brand new topic.
Katie Hafner: Jennifer Vanderbes spoke with Mintz whereas engaged on her ebook.
Jennifer Vanderbes: So he will get placed on to the story. He runs proper over to the FDA, speaks with Frances Kelsey. He is aware of story of when he is bought one.
Katie Hafner: Mintz, who by the best way remains to be alive as of this recording and is 102 years previous, had began his journalism profession in St. Louis, the place, amongst different issues, he revealed a collection of investigations into the remedy of individuals with mental disabilities. Considered one of his personal daughters had been born with Down syndrome, and he turned a passionate advocate for households of disabled kids.
When Mintz sat down in Kelsey’s FDA workplace for his or her interview, he began their dialog by telling Kelsey about his daughter. The 2 of them linked. And when his article was revealed within the Publish a number of days later, it painted Kelsey in phrases befitting a hero. The opening strains had been all the things Estes Kefauver’s workplace might have hoped for:
“That is the story of how the skepticism and stubbornness of a authorities doctor prevented what might have been an appalling American tragedy, the delivery of tons of or certainly 1000’s of armless and legless kids.”
“She noticed her obligation in sternly easy phrases, and she or he carried it out, dwelling the whereas withinsinuations that she was a bureaucratic nitpicker, unreasonable – even, she stated, silly.”
Christine Kelsey: And it went on the entrance web page, and it was, it simply could not be ignored. The best way he wrote it, it couldn’t be ignored.
Katie Hafner: Christine Kelsey, Frances Kelsey’s daughter once more:
Christine Kelsey: The entire thing tumbled, proper? His article got here out after which it turned clear that the general public wasn’t going to let this go and the Kefauver hearings wanted to be sped up a bit. So all of it tumbled from that one article.
President John F. Kennedy: Good afternoon. I’ve a number of bulletins.
Katie Hafner: On August 1,1962, President John F. Kennedy held a press convention.
President John F. Kennedy: Latest occasions on this nation and overseas regarding the results of a brand new sedative referred to as thalidomide emphasize once more the urgency of offering further safety to American customers from dangerous or nugatory drug merchandise.
Katie Hafner: Every week afterward the White Home Garden, President Kennedy offered Dr. Frances Kelsey with the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, the best award the federal authorities can provide a profession civil servant.
Christine Kelsey: She solely heard that she was getting this medal about lower than per week earlier than.
Katie Hafner: Frances’s household was there. And Barbara Moulton too—bear in mind the FDA whistleblower and Frances’s good buddy. It was essential to Frances that the girl who had tried to reform the FDA and who supported Frances by means of all this be there. This was a giant second for all of them. Although, on model, Frances’s two daughters discovered the entire occasion…embarrassing.
Christine Kelsey: I feel she’d already gotten the award, and a few man in a swimsuit got here and stated, Oh, the President wish to meet you. To my sister and I, we had been so shy, we stated, Oh no, no, no. So we did not. So, I, I lay declare to fame as most likely one of many few people who stated no to assembly President Kennedy.
Katie Hafner: However everybody else was fairly happy. Jennifer Vanderbes says it wasn’t only a private victory for Frances Kelsey. It was an enormous win for the FDA—the company seemed completely heroic for blocking this drug that different nations had carelessly accepted. It was a giant win for Kennedy, whose administration got here off trying robust on large pharma. And it was a giant win for Senator Estes Kefauver, who would possibly lastly get some stricter drug legal guidelines handed.
Jennifer Vanderbes once more.
Jennifer Vanderbes: Frances Kelsey turned this poster little one of the hero combating dangerous pharma at a second when the USA authorities. Congress wished to cross a invoice that was going to rein in large pharma.
Katie Hafner: And right here now we have 1000’s, perhaps tens of 1000’s of pregnant American ladies who’ve dodged a bullet, proper? Sure. And in addition no.
As a result of whereas the media celebrated Frances Kelsey, they missed one thing. One thing essential. Many ladies did take thalidomide in the USA. And tons of of them had been pregnant on the time.
Kristin Atwell: Sherri turned pregnant in early Might.
Katie Hafner: That’s Kristin Atwell, Sherri Chessen’s youngest daughter. We spoke with Kristi and Sherri a number of months in the past. As you would possibly recall from our first episode, Sherri Chessen was in her first trimester of being pregnant in July 1962, when she noticed an article in her native paper about thalidomide. This was only a day after The Washington Publish story ran. Right here’s Kristin:
Kristin Atwell: Sherri noticed that article and her coronary heart wept for moms and their households who can be confronted with that call of getting a toddler so deeply injured that it could not maintain life.
Sherri Chessen: Poisoned.
Katie Hafner: That’s Sherri popping in.
Sherri Chessen: Poisoned.
Kristin Atwell: From a drug that they took in good conscience.
Sherri Chessen: Yeah.
Katie Hafner: Sherri was moved by this story. She beloved children—she already had 4 of her personal—and when she wasn’t caring for them, she hosted a children’ TV program. “Romper Room.” She might relate to the mother and father within the story. She was pregnant with a child she desperately wished. She’d taken a sedative throughout her being pregnant. It was terrible to consider what had occurred to these different mother and father.
Right here’s Sherri, now 92:
Sherri Chessen: And I stated, properly, to start with, the drug I took got here from England. My husband introduced it down. Again from a, uh, journey with highschool college students and it was referred to as Distaval. So I assumed, I ponder if Distaval has thalidomide in it.
Kristin Atwell: And that is what despatched Sherri to her physician with the Distaval that my father had introduced again from London.
Katie Hafner: So she referred to as her physician, and he advised her…
Sherri Chessen: I need you and your husband, not excellent news once they say that, to return in to see me. And he says, Sherri, come Saturday. Use my again door. Do not Let anybody see you.
So we went down there and, um, he confirmed me the telegram that the factor was, I bear in mind the final phrases, Distaval was thalidomide. It did not have thalidomide, it was thalidomide
Katie Hafner: Sherri’s physician, didn’t know a lot about thalidomide, however he knew that Sherri had been taking it often, all through the early levels of her being pregnant. And primarily based on the information popping out of Europe, the child’s prognosis didn’t look good.
And the place did he flip?
Kristin Atwell: He wrote Frances Kelsey instantly.
Katie Hafner: Particularly, Sherri’s physician despatched Frances Kelsey a telegram.
Kristin Atwell: Asking what the chances had been since Sherri had been taking it often by means of the delicate weeks.
Katie Hafner: In fact, Frances responded, taking day out of what had been her clearly VERY busy days, with a radical and considerate letter.
Kristin Atwell: Frances Kelsey would not actually say that she really useful a termination as a result of it wasn’t her place.
Katie Hafner: Frances urged they get in contact with Dr. Helen Taussig to get extra data. She additionally handed alongside what data she had–that sure, in keeping with Taussig, even a single dose of thalidomide might trigger extreme phocomelia, however you would additionally take extra thalidomide with solely gentle harm. So there was actually no telling.
And simply as she had dealt with the Merrell software, Frances Kelsey was cautious in her response. She didn’t wish to say roughly than she had proof for. So the physician bought in contact with Helen Taussig, whose response was much more definitive than Frances Kelsey’s had been. She advised him there was a excessive chance that the child had been injured. And given all this, Sherri’s physician suggested her.
Sherri Chessen: Sherri, when you actually wish to have a fifth little one, we’ll terminate this being pregnant and begin once more beneath higher odds.
Katie Hafner: Sherri’s physician organized for her to have an abortion at an area hospital. Now bear in mind, abortion was unlawful in Arizona, because it was in all places else within the U.S., as a result of this was all a decade earlier than Roe v. Wade. Abortion was solely allowed solely when the mom’s life was in danger, however abortions for medical causes had been typically carried out in the event that they had been accepted by a panel of docs.
However simply earlier than her scheduled abortion, Sherri made one other, very courageous alternative. She went to the press.
Sherri Chessen: I’m very impulsive. And my first thought was, as quickly as we bought residence, I stated, I’ve to name the newspaper.
Katie Hafner: Sherri wished to guarantee that different American moms knew about thalidomide. She wished to say to different mother and father what she wished somebody had stated to her. Hold a watch out. This might occur to you too.
The next Monday, July 23, 1962, Sherri’s story was on the entrance web page of The Arizona Republic.
Sherri Chessen: …“Child Deforming Drug Might Price A Lady Her Baby Right here.” It didn’t title me, after all.
Katie Hafner: The article referred to her as a housewife and mom, not a beloved tv host. However apparently, simply the revelation that somebody in Arizona was having an abortion that wasn’t required to save lots of the mom’s life—that was sufficient to place a goal on her again. As a result of the subsequent day, her physician got here to her with some dangerous information.
Sherri Chessen: My physician stated, the abortion has been canceled. They do not know who it’s, however the county lawyer is aware of that somebody right here in Arizona goes to have an abortion and they’re going to do a citizen’s arrest.
Katie Hafner: Sherri fought to get a authorized abortion in Arizona, however finally, she was compelled to go to Sweden for it. Abortions had been additionally restricted there on the time, however she was granted one on the grounds that it was needed to guard her psychological well being. Nonetheless, it was a horrible time for Sherri. She misplaced her job internet hosting “Romper Room” – the station didn’t suppose she must be on TV working with little children. And she or he misplaced her anonymity. All the painful twists and turns of her journey had been lined within the press.
Sherri Chessen: Everybody stated that I might be vilified. Considered one of my lawyer associates stated I circumvented Arizona legislation so I ought to serve jail time.
Katie Hafner: Sherri Chessen turned one of many faces of the American thalidomide story, seen on newsstands throughout the nation alongside Frances Kelsey. And because of the pair of them —a stoic FDA researcher and a courageous childrens’ TV host—thalidomide started to really feel private to People. For a lot of, Sherri’s story underscored the hazard and the tragedy. Which, in flip, made Frances Kelsey appear much more heroic.
And in order that’s how in the summertime of 1962, People lastly discovered concerning the risks of thalidomide. Nearly 5 years after a German firm first began promoting a drug referred to as Contergan, and a full eight months after that very same firm lastly withdrew the drug from the market. However what number of households would have been spared if the information about thalidomide had reached them sooner?
Jennifer Vanderbes: There’s one other model of the story the place, for instance, the second it is recalled in Germany, it is recalled worldwide. Proper? and docs are very properly and absolutely knowledgeable as to the medicine dangers.
Katie Hafner: However that’s not what occurred. The American firm, Merrell, left the capsules out to flow into… properly after the drug had been pulled in Europe. American ladies like Sherri Chessen continued to take these capsules, trusting them to be secure. And the American authorities didn’t subject warnings to the general public till AFTER the story broke within the Washington Publish.
Which leads me to one thing that’s been nagging at me as I’ve gone over this entire insane, unforgivable timeline of occasions. The Germans pulled thalidomide off the market in November 1961. Frances Kelsey was knowledgeable of this flip of occasions, and what she discovered from Helen
Taussig alarmed her. However what did she do in these months earlier than the risks of thalidomide turned identified to the American public? Did she know concerning the capsules already circulating within the U.S.? Was it even her job to know? And what was she considering, particularly about whether or not any thalidomide infants had been on the market in her personal yard?
Subsequent time on the “Satan within the Particulars”:
Jennifer Vanderbes: So she begins simply going to large hospitals that she has relationships with and asking, have you ever seen a spike in infants born with phocomelia?
Katie Hafner: Elah Feder was senior producer for this episode, and Deborah Unger was senior managing producer. Our affiliate producer is Mila Rahim. Sophia Levin and Eva McCullough supplied analysis assist. Sarah Wyman wrote an early draft.
Our music was composed by Lizzy Younan. We had reality checking assist from Lexi Atiya. Alexa Lim edited the audio, and Hansdale Hsu mastered this episode. Lisk Feng created the artwork for the season and Lily Whear did the artwork design.
Thanks, as all the time, to my co-executive producer, Amy Scharf, and to Eowyn Burtner, our program supervisor. Thanks additionally to Jeff DelViscio at our publishing accomplice, Scientific American. We’re distributed by PRX.
Funding for “Misplaced Girls of Science” is available in half from the Alfred P. Sloan Basis and the Anne Wojcicki Basis.
For a transcript of this episode or to study extra about Frances Kelsey, please go to our web site, lostwomenofscience.org and don’t neglect to hit that all-important, omnipresent donate button.
See you subsequent week!
HOST: Katie Hafner
SENIOR PRODUCER: Elah Feder
SENIOR MANAGING PRODUCER: Deborah Unger
GUESTS:
Jennifer Vanderbes is a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter.
Sherri Chessen is the previous host of the Arizona version of Romper Room.
Kristin Atwell is the daughter of Sherri Chessen.
Christine Kelsey is the daughter of Frances Oldham Kelsey.
Cheryl Krasnick Warsh is a professor of historical past at Vancouver Island College.
Credit score: Lily Whear (composite); Lisk Feng (picture)
FURTHER READING:
Autobiographical Reflections. Frances Oldham Kelsey. U.S. Meals and Drug Administration
“Sleeping Tablet Nightmare,” in Time; February 23, 1962
“Deformed Infants Traced to a Drug,” by Robert Ok. Plumb, New York Occasions; April 12, 1962