“What the public did not know is that Grünenthal had no reliable evidence to back up its claims that the drug was safe. They also ignored the increasing number of reports coming in about harmful side-effects as the drug was being used. In fact, starting in 1959 Grünenthal was flooded with complaints from doctors about mild to severe and sometimes permanent nerve damage, especially by elderly people who had used the drug as a sleeping aid.
[…]
The company was equally dismissive of concerns related to deformed babies. The drug was widely promoted as an anti-nausea drug for pregnant women experiencing morning sickness. When the company was confronted with reports on malformed babies and suggestions that the malformations could be possibly linked to Thalidomide, they didn’t react. Instead of taking all those reports seriously Grünenthal responded with measures to keep the drug on the market.”
Yep, and yet no matter how many times I point this out, people act like I'm a lunatic when I say I won't take a drug that hasn't been on the market for at least ten years.
“What the public did not know is that Grünenthal had no reliable evidence to back up its claims that the drug was safe. They also ignored the increasing number of reports coming in about harmful side-effects as the drug was being used. In fact, starting in 1959 Grünenthal was flooded with complaints from doctors about mild to severe and sometimes permanent nerve damage, especially by elderly people who had used the drug as a sleeping aid.
[…]
The company was equally dismissive of concerns related to deformed babies. The drug was widely promoted as an anti-nausea drug for pregnant women experiencing morning sickness. When the company was confronted with reports on malformed babies and suggestions that the malformations could be possibly linked to Thalidomide, they didn’t react. Instead of taking all those reports seriously Grünenthal responded with measures to keep the drug on the market.”
source :
https://thalidomide.ca/en/what-is-thalidomide/
There is a joke :
This is the way scientists admit their mistakes:
Wait 100 years
Say “all those scientists were wrong”
Yep, and yet no matter how many times I point this out, people act like I'm a lunatic when I say I won't take a drug that hasn't been on the market for at least ten years.