The BBC series Call the Midwife recently featured the birth of babies with malformed limbs and other abnormalities, caused by their mothers taking the drug thalidomide during the early stages of pregnancy. But what is the chemistry behind this dark chapter in the history of medicine?
Thalidomide was hailed in the late 1950s as a wonder drug, prescribed as a mild sleeping pill, able to prevent morning sickness during pregnancy. Initially the connection between the drug and the birth defects wasn’t made, and around 10000 babies were affected before thalidomide was taken off the market as a treatment for morning sickness in the early 1960s.
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