[thucydides]

I understand the horrible Thalidomide itself, which caused birth defects, is the ideal drug for certain conditions, provided pregnant women are not involved. It was the failure of the FDA to act on Thalidomide that put them in the position of being able to endlessly delay everything. In a bureaucracy, approval of anything that turns out to have problems is bad. Endless delays that kill thousands are just fine, because there are no visible victims that can be identified.

[Britton J Wingfield]

My dad takes thalidomide daily to keep his cancer in check, and it works great where interferon failed.

[Steve Eisenberg]

It was the failure of the FDA to act on Thalidomide that put them in the position of being able to endlessly delay everything.

The thalidomide babies were not American. U.S. drug approval procedures were already then sufficient to protect us from this, and yet have become far more stringent over time.

To make a long story short, the thalidomide situation with morning sickness was unique. We now know that pregnant women with non-serious illnesses should not be very early adopters of new drugs which block formation of blood vessels. Overly broad lessons have been drawn from that tradegy.