5 ms·

Also see thalidomide in Europe

• pkaye 7y ago
  Wow looks like there are still people around who suffered deformities because of the mistakes in approving thalidomide. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15536544 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15536544
  • dekhn 7y ago
    It's also still used successfully as a medicine for a number of uses.
    • pkaye 7y ago
      I sure they take more precautions like make sure women who take the medications are not pregnant.
      • dekhn 7y ago
        Yes, exactly. Seems better than a blanket ban. As pointed out elsewhere, the FDA is basically trying to keep dramatic risks/outcomes low, to maintain confidence in approved drugs, but tends to have a high false negative rate. What's interesting is that Vioxx was approved, but later appeared to have huge negative impact when it was given to large numbers of people (and apparently, it was also evident in the raw clinical trials data which was submitted to FDA). It's an entirely non-trivial, multi-dimensional, systemic problem.
        • sarakayakomzin 7y ago
          >Yes, exactly. Seems better than a blanket ban. and yet somehow you don't concede that a non-blanket ban should have been the conclusion prior to opening it up to the public?