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

Yes. It is also good for a form of leprosy. And yet it was illegal in the U.S. until recently, on the ridiculous theory that it might be accidentally prescribed to a pregnant woman in face of all the publicity about the tragic side effect. In fact, ever since the thalidomide tragedy was decisively publicized, there have been zero additional thalidomide babies, even though some countries, including Israel, never took it off the market but rather trusted the good sense of their nation's physicians. Here is a good link:

The Right Lesson To Learn From Thalidomide

17 posted on 07/23/2002 5:55:13 PM PDT by Steve Eisenberg
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To: Steve Eisenberg
The FDA is extremely risk adverse!

They caused the Imclone problem, when it looked like the drug was performing OK . And the one I have been following is CellPathways which thought they were close to approval, but a key FDA manager was changed and the new team denied approval for a promising treatment for Colon Polyps and Colon Cancer!

24 posted on 07/23/2002 7:09:39 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: Steve Eisenberg
The boxes of thalidomide come with graphic pictures of deformed babies on them, just in case anyone doesn't take it seriously enough.

Propecia must do something awful to unborn babies, since the ads warn pregnant women not to touch a broken tablet. No old stigma attached to that one, though.

26 posted on 07/23/2002 10:16:51 PM PDT by Britton J Wingfield
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