Dr Kelsey - the woman who saved the world from thalidomide

I thank my lucky stars I was pregnant at the end of the sixties and not the fifties. I suffered from terrible morning, noon and night sickness for five months and had to be admitted to hospital twice with dehydration. I would gladly have taken thalidomide had it been on offer.

When DD was born the midwife asked if I had taken drugs for sickness and sent me into a panic because I did not really see my DD before they rushed her away to a nursery. I asked the midwife why she wanted to know and was there a problem but she said she just wanted to complete her notes. I had been given drugs for sickness because I was unable to work as a nurse with day long nausea and vomiting. DD was absolutely fine but the midwife made no attempt to reassure me and they did not bring my baby back for another 24 hours.
Thalidomide may have been terrible for expectant mums but was effective in the treatment of leprosy and is used in some cancer treatments.

Lucky for the US.
My mother was given thalidomide for morning sickness when she was expecting my sister. It did not make any difference to the morning sickness, just made her feel more tired, so she stopped taking it.
My sister was lucky as well.

Not heard that rule Maggie I shall remember that.

Apparently in the 1930s, when she still lived in Canada, she was offered a job at the University of Chicago after a written application only because they assumed, from her name, that she was a man. How very fortuitous that someone didn't know the Frances/Lesley rule - e for 'er and i for 'im!

Absolutely, Soontobe, very commonly used. If you look at how some women suffer from crippling 24/7 "morning" sickness (e.g. Kate Cambridge) it was heralded as something which made life bearable and clearly not every user had a baby with birth defects.

How tragic that this drug didn't come to her attention before it was in such wide use in Europe. She was indeed a wonderful woman, prepared to stand up to the mighty pharmaceutical companies for no personal gain.

It sounds like the drug had a licence in the UK before it had a licence in the USA.
It was readily available in the UK I presume, Alea? Pretty sure mum could just have got it from her GP.

Absolutely janeainsworth. Going against the flow is not easy. I wish many more people would do it.

Thank you for the link gk.
We should be grateful for those who are prepared to stand up to vested interests and go against the flow. What a brave woman.
Her legacy will have been not just to have prevented more thalidomide births, but perhaps by encouraging others to question evidence, prevent more, similar tragedies.

Morning sickness, soontobe, a bit of a "wonder" drug at the time.

Good for her - she took on the might of the drug companies.

She did wonderful work.

Link ok now.

The link hasnt come through properly for me.

The woman saved me from thalidomide.
My aunt was trying to persuade my mum to take it. I cant remember what for. Morning sickness?
Fortunately mum didnt because of this woman.
My aunt ended up having a miscarriage.

Crossed posts

That's a grand age.

The link doesn't work BTW

mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/science/frances-oldham-kelsey-fda-doctor-who-exposed-danger-of-thalidomide-dies-at-101.html?referrer=

(I don't think the above link works, hope this one is blue)!