Attacking the Devil

[Disir]

Attacking the Devil is a great documentary that centers around Harold Evans investigative journalism and his work towards changing legal and medical laws. The primary focus of his investigative journalism are the Thalidomide children and tracing the history.




It's very interesting and on Netflix.

 

[Moonglow]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

 

[bullwinkle]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

Hey, Pogo, do you remember when Every August was Polio month and we kids couldn't go swimming of even get wet under the hose or opened hydrants? Remember Iron lungs?

 

[Moonglow]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

Hey, Pogo, do you remember when Every August was Polio month and we kids couldn't go swimming of even get wet under the hose or opened hydrants? Remember Iron lungs?

I'm not Pogo, but yes I remember, and still have the circular scar on my shoulder from the polio vaccine..

 

[Disir]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

It wasn't allowed in the states.

 

[Moonglow]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

It wasn't allowed in the states.

Although thalidomide was never licensed in the United States, it was distributed as samples to American doctors to try with their patients. It was common practice at that time for drug companies to pass on experimental drugs to doctors, who were then paid to collect data on their patients’ results. Patients did not normally know or consent to their part in this loosely controlled research.
Thalidomide Drug Crisis 1960s - All Americans Will Pull Together.. . The Federal Government’s Evolving Role in Dealing with Disaster - LibGuides at Emory University - Main Library (Woodruff)

 

[tyroneweaver]

The sugar cube was vehicle for dosage for me.
The round scar are small pox vaccinations
Remember the iron lungs very well.

 

[Pogo]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

Hey, Pogo, do you remember when Every August was Polio month and we kids couldn't go swimming of even get wet under the hose or opened hydrants? Remember Iron lungs?

Well ------- no, I don't remember any of that. I do remember polio shots of course, and it was not that long ago that polio epidemics were happening. I believe both Joni Mitchell and Neil Young were stricken with it as kids.

Thalidomide caused thousands of birth defects around the world but it was never licensed here thanks to Frances Kelsey at the FDA, who saw something suspicious, demanded the drug justify itself, came under fire from Big Pharma for daring to stand in the way of their profits --- and was proven right. Something I like to point out to the anarchist Randbots who whine about eliminating all government agencies.

​

Frances Kelsey just passed away last summer, at the age of 101.

 

[Ringel05]

The sugar cube was vehicle for dosage for me.
The round scar are small pox vaccinations
Remember the iron lungs very well.

Yup, Polio vaccine was initially administered to children via a sugar cube then eventually a regular injection, I believe I had the injection but that was so long ago. Small Pox vaccination was the big 'tube' that left the round scar.

 

[Pogo]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

Hey, Pogo, do you remember when Every August was Polio month and we kids couldn't go swimming of even get wet under the hose or opened hydrants? Remember Iron lungs?

Well ------- no, I don't remember any of that. I do remember polio shots of course, and it was not that long ago that polio epidemics were happening. I believe both Joni Mitchell and Neil Young were stricken with it as kids.

Thalidomide caused thousands of birth defects around the world but it was never licensed here thanks to Frances Kelsey at the FDA, who saw something suspicious, demanded the drug justify itself, came under fire from Big Pharma for daring to stand in the way of their profits --- and was proven right. Something I like to point out to the anarchist Randbots who whine about eliminating all government agencies.

​

Frances Kelsey just passed away last summer, at the age of 101.

From my tribute thread on Kelsey's passing:

>> The sedative was Kevadon, and the application to market it in America reached the new medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in September 1960. The drug had already been sold to pregnant women in Europe for morning sickness, and the application seemed routine, ready for the rubber stamp.

But some data on the drug’s safety troubled Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a former family doctor and teacher in South Dakota who had just taken the F.D.A. job in Washington, reviewing requests to license new drugs. She asked the manufacturer, the William S. Merrell Company of Cincinnati, for more information.

Thus began a fateful test of wills. Merrell responded. Dr. Kelsey wanted more. Merrell complained to Dr. Kelsey’s bosses, calling her a petty bureaucrat. She persisted. On it went. But by late 1961, the terrible evidence was pouring in. The drug — better known by its generic name, Thalidomide — was causing thousands of babies in Europe, Britain, Canada and the Middle East to be born with flipperlike arms and legs and other defects.

... She was hailed by citizens’ groups and awarded honorary degrees. Congress bestowed on her a medal for service to humanity and passed legislation requiring drug makers to prove that new products were safe and effective before marketing them. President John F. Kennedy signed the landmark law that she had inspired, and presented her with the nation’s highest federal civilian service award.

“Her exceptional judgment in evaluating a new drug for safety for human use has prevented a major tragedy of birth deformities in the United States,” Kennedy said at a White House ceremony.

.... In 1962, the F.D.A. set up a branch to test and regulate new drugs, and Dr. Kelsey was put in charge of it. Later, she became director of the agency’s Office of Scientific Investigations, and in a distinguished 45-year career with the F.D.A. helped rewrite the nation’s medical-testing regulations, strengthening protections for people and against medical conflicts of interest. The rules have been adopted worldwide. << ---- NYT
​

I've brought up Frances Kelsey several times here, usually for the benefit of the anarchists ("libertarians") crying the blues about the FDA impinging on citizens' right to get sick. Thalidomide caused phocomelia (malformation of the limbs) in tens of thousands of newborns around the world after it went on the market in 1957, less than half of whom even survived to cope with their deformity.

That never happened in the US, because this woman, via the FDA, singlehandedly put up a stop sign. That act literally saved an untold number of lives, probably in the thousands. She's a heroine.

Frances Kelsey (1914-2015) passed away in London Ontario (she's Canadian) at the age of a hundred and one.

 

[Disir]

I am damn lucky my Mom never was administered Thalidomide, Polio was bad enough at the time..

It wasn't allowed in the states.

Although thalidomide was never licensed in the United States, it was distributed as samples to American doctors to try with their patients. It was common practice at that time for drug companies to pass on experimental drugs to doctors, who were then paid to collect data on their patients’ results. Patients did not normally know or consent to their part in this loosely controlled research.
Thalidomide Drug Crisis 1960s - All Americans Will Pull Together.. . The Federal Government’s Evolving Role in Dealing with Disaster - LibGuides at Emory University - Main Library (Woodruff)

OOoh! I did not know that. Thanks. Hell, I didn't even know it had been an issue AT all. Yep, you were lucky.

 

[strollingbones]

it was an excellent doc on how no one wanted to believe what was happening or happened

 

[g5000]

I got the sugar cube. In my school cafeteria.

 

[Pogo]

I got the sugar cube. In my school cafeteria.

I got the sugar cube at a party. Later we moved on to blotter and microdot, and you needed a black light.

Bones will get that at least ....
Actually Moonglow and Ringel should get it too. Frankly, everybody will get that.

 

[bullwinkle]

I got the sugar cube. In my school cafeteria.

My memory is getting rusty, but it seems to me the Salk vaccine was given by injection and the later Sabin vaccine was administered by sugar cube. It became available to my kids in elementary school, sometime in the early 60's I think. Funny Story: my oldest daughter got the MMR shot while sitting on one of those metal folding chairs with the slightly shaped seat where the butt part rises slightly under the thighs. She was about 6 yrs old. She was a little trooper, trying to stay calm as the needle got closer. When the shot was withdrawn, I asked if she was OK and she nodded yes. But when she got up from the chair (a little stiffly) there was a little puddle of pee in the seat. I was proud of her for her stoicism in the face of such fear. OTOH, my second daughter tensed up so tight the needle couldn't pierce her skin. We let her go for a while, then sneaked up from behind and shot her before she could think about it. None of the kids cried or even balked. Now they have grandkids of their own.