Thalidomide tragedy: the story and lessons …
In the 1940s and early 1950s, pregnant women throughout the world who experienced morning sickness and other anxieties associated with the first term of pregnancy were given barbiturate sedatives for relief. The issue with these barbiturates, like most sedatives, was the fact that they were highly toxic in large doses. In 1957, Chemie Grunenthal of Germany launched thalidomide as a safer alternative to barbiturate sedatives. Thalidomide, as a new sedative, was a very “attractive” drug …
