Thalidomide tragedy

Interest in compounds of this generic type has cooled considerably in the wake of the thalidomide tragedy. 

You may have heard of the thalidomide tragedy. Thalidomide was widely prescribed to pregnant women in the 1950s and early 1960s as a drug to combat morning sickness. Tragically, many of the babies born to these women had malformed limbs and it was later proved that thalidomide was linked to these birth defects. 

A number of subcommittees were also established to assist the main Committee. These were the Subcommittee on Toxicity and the Subcommittee on Clinical Trials and Therapeutic Efficacy. Against the background of the thalidomide tragedy, an important subcommittee established was the Subcommittee on Adverse Reactions. The memberships of the main... 

The thalidomide tragedy of the early 1960s served as an impetus for expanded research 1n the field of teratology. This and the Increased popularity of environmental and health issues caused a rapid acceleration in the rate of publications in this research area (Fig. 1). Proliferation of modern pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals has resulted in a mushrooming of the literature on their prenatal toxicology, which 1s an Important element 1n the total spectrum of toxicity Information. 

Prior to the mid-1980s the chemical industry experienced some upheavals of which the thalidomide tragedy of the early 1960s and the Bhopal catastrophe in 1984 are two major examples. However, the lessons learned from such sad events led to a spectacular improvement during the 1990s in the safety record of the industry in the Western world. 

As increasing numbers of people experience the ill effects of medication use and realize that this is not an inevitable consequence of our health care system, the public outcry for answers will intensify. Medication safety has been the driving force for many health care advances, such as the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide scandal (FD C Act), the European thalidomide tragedy (1962 Kefauver Drug Amendments), and the incidence of adverse drug events in nursing homes (1974 Consultant Pharmacists Law). ... 

It has been noted, especially since the thalidomide tragedy, that different chemical enantiomers can induce very different biochemical responses. The production of enantiomerically-pure compounds is critical to the pharmaceutical, agro-chemical and fine-chemical industries, and has fueled the need for enantioselective heterogeneous catalysis [1]. 

Warnings about sedatives proved prescient once the thalidomide tragedy unfolded in the early 1960s. AkdA leaders then expanded their efforts to collect and evaluate reports of adverse reactions from physicians across the country. In order to do so, they published guidelines asking physicians to provide case descriptions of undesired reactions to individual drugs or combinations of... 

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