Remember Thalidomide!

An unscrupulous politician (who shall remain unnamed in this article), is engaged in an opportunistic push to pressurize medical researchers and doctors in the United States, to produce an ‘instant’ vaccine to immunize people against the COVID-19 Virus. American medical experts such as Dr Anthony Gaucci are resisting, insisting that proper and thorough tests should be done first, and safety, NOT urgency, should be the priority.

They have forgotten Thalidomide.

In the 1960’s, a German pharmaceutical company sold a drug known as Thalidomide, as a treatment for pregnant women. It was supposed to be a medication for conditions ranging from ‘morning sickness’ to sleeping difficulties. (The company had been established as a soap maker after World War II, its leading Chemist being a known Nazi war criminal –according to Wikipedia).

It had been introduced to the market as a sedative and medication for morning sickness, without being tested on pregnant women. For women in 46 countries, where it was used, it became “the biggest man‐made medical disaster ever,” with over 10,000 children born with a range of severe deformities. Of the total number of people affected by the use of thalidomide during the mother’s pregnancy approximately 40 percent died .(Source-Wikipedia, and New York Times). Those who survived had limb, eye, urinary tract, and heart defects. “The most common form of birth defects from thalidomide is shortened limbs”.

In 1962, Food and Drug Administration pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, for blocking the sale of Thalidomide in the United States. Later, the Thalidomide debacle led to greater drug regulation in many countries.

But not before the manufacturer was forced to pay compensation in the UK, the USA, Canada , France and Germany. But the number of countries where it was sold by that unscrupulous pharmaceutical company, was 46. It is very likely that Thalidomide victims in the Third World countries received no help at all!

Thalidomide is an example of why , where medicine is involved, caution and circumspection must take precedence over urgency. Under political pressure from an electioneering President in the United States, If a vaccine appears, ostensibly as a miracle cure for Covid 19, “Let the buyer beware! ” – especially if sold by Western Multinational Pharmaceutical companies to the Third World.

Remember Thalidomide!

JAYMAN