It is obvious that prescription drugs make a massive difference with a lot of peoples day-to-day lives. These drugs proceed through a significant substantial assessment and also safety practices before they are offered for general use. A small number drugs get through the testing with most faltering and then they are discontinued by the pharmaceutical business. The higher standard mandatory before drug treatments can be approved for the market come about because of the tougher requirements as a result of prior failures, many of them being really dramatic. Essentially the most recognized of those problems has become the thalidomide controversy.

Thalidomide was initially commercialized in 1957 in Germany to take care of anxiety, sleeping issues and morning sickness in pregnancy. The thalidomide was helpful for the morning illness in pregnancy and was speedily licensed in forty six countries to be used by women who were currently pregnant. It was not licensed for use and distribution in the USA, where it had been turned down by the Food and Drug Administration for not achieving high enough criteria. Thalidomide was never tested to ascertain if it had been safe when pregnant. The end result of thalidomides use in pregnancy ended up being an estimated more than 10 000 children being born with a variety of serious deformities and many more miscarriages. Of the live births just over half passed away within a few months of being born. This could be the biggest scandal from the history of the prescription drug market.

Complications with thalidomide had been initially noticed in 1961 by the Australian doctor, William McBride, that wrote correspondence in the Lancet medical journal in relation to their observations of seeing an increase in the amount of disfigured babies which were given birth to at his hospital, all of whom the mothers were having thalidomide. At approximately the same time, the paediatrician Widukind Lenz in Germany also noted many similar instances where the medication was still sold over-the-counter rather than just on prescription. This then resulted in an exploration and subsequent prohibiting of the thalidomide from being used. In 1968, the German company that made thalidomide, Chemie Grünenthal was placed on trial in Germany with the company settling the case out of court with no court case proceeding. Because of this German victims ended up remunerated. Nobody from the Chemie Grünenthal was found guilty of any criminal activity. In the United Kingdom, the sufferers of the thalidomide ended up also compensated by the UK distributors of the drug. In other countries there were a number of class actions pursued, contributing to pay outs years after the drug discontinued to be sold.

The press surrounding this and the birth defects that occurred from thalidomide cast a dark shadow all over pharmaceutical drug sector. The resulting condemnation led to every country to create more effective methods for medication regulations and also monitoring following the authorization of medicine. This was especially the case in the terms of the use of medicines during pregnancy in which the requirements and conditions have become very high.

Thalidomide as a medication nevertheless does have some uses for the management for some cancers and some inflammatory diseases. It's getting used as a medication for leprosy along with myeloma.