Review of WONDER DRUG
The cost of profit and lax regulation
Tl;dr – A great narrative history book on the ‘wonder drug’ thalidomide that was put on the market across the world in the late 1950s through early 1960s that causes sever limb defects to the fetus during pregnancy. The story reveals how improper regulation, corporate greed, and negligent doctors caused the suffering of tens of thousands of women and children.
Having recently been pregnant, I cannot emphasize how scary it is to be prescribed needed medication and truly wonder if it is safe. (Shout out to all-knowing Emily Oster for always having the answers). Many medications aren’t tested on pregnant women for obvious reasons, and many are labeled in a way that they “probably won’t” cause problems. Then, imagine a time when ultrasounds weren’t a thing, and clinical research was more so just vibes, and think of how wrong that could go.
Well, in the 60s, it went wrong. Thousands of babies were being born with deformed or missing limbs. A promising drug called Thalidomide seemed to be the cause. In Wonder Drug: The Secret History of Thalidomide in America and its Hidden Victims Jennifer Vanderbes tells the story of how a drug came on the world market and resulted in an estimated 150,000 miscarriages and birth defects over the course of a just a few years.
A new sedative drug called Thalidomide was created by German pharmaceutical company Chemie Grünenthal and marketed as a “wonder drug” given it’s almost unbelievable safety and effectiveness – that is, according to its makers. As sales reps across Europe, Australia, and the United States began liberally prescribing it and running “clinical trials”, the pharmaceutical companies that produced this drug had an absolute money-maker on its hands. And nothing would stop them from getting it into the hands of doctors and patients everywhere.
But when the drug came across the desk of Dr. Frances Kelsey at the FDA for approval to sell in the US market, she had her doubts. The paperwork was dubious and the clinical research lacking. There seemed to be no explanation of how the drug worked, its long-term safety or safety in pregnant women. She continued to request more information and data from the drug makers much to their annoyance of this woman who refused to just push through the paperwork and get their profit train running.
At the same time, babies with severe phocomelia – shortened, disfigured, or missing limbs – were being born in hospitals in Germany and Australia at an unprecedented rate. While most doctors would never see a case in their whole career, they were suddenly getting multiple phocomelia babies a week.
Over time, independent doctors made the connection and published papers about the risk and wrote in to the drug company about the severe side effects of this “safe” drug. But as Big Pharma does, bad outcomes don’t make for big profit. They ignored or countered the reports. The majority of doctors dispensing the drug were borderline criminally negligent with their patients, refusing to believe that the drug they were prescribing was causing an onslaught of birth defects.
The drug never officially went on sale in the US, but it was distributed to thousands of doctors to run “trials” with their patients. At the time the FDA had no oversight of trial drugs, so despite the drug never being approved, thousands of doctors had huge supplies to dole out to their patients.
Wonder Drug tells the story of how shoddy research, lax regulation, medical negligence, and corporate greed can conspire to ruin lives. Vanderbes does a phenomenal job of telling the story and centering the work of Dr. Frances Kelsey who was instrumental at minimizing the epidemic in the US.
I had honestly never heard of Thalidomide prior to reading this book. This book was a gift from Hilary at Random House that I received galleys of back in spring 2023 – right as I learned of my own pregnancy. I began to read it then but thought that maybe reading a book on birth defects wasn’t helpful at the time. I finally picked it back up this month and I cannot recommend it enough.
Published: June 2023
Publisher: Random House
Format: Advance Reader Copy
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010) by Siddhartha Mukherjee
She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity (2018) Carl Zimmer
