Two Thalidomide Disasters

Myths about the thalidomide tragedy have resulted in decades of missteps

“Most people have heard of the thalidomide tragedy. Few people have heard that that tragedy led lawmakers to cause an even bigger tragedy. In short, there were two thalidomide disasters.”

This is from an article that David R. Henderson and I wrote for Cato’s Regulation. I consider this one of the most important articles I’ve written.

If you want to understand the FDA and the current drug regulation scheme, look no further than thalidomide. In short, the FDA is a government agency that was designed to prevent similar disasters. That would be fine if the first thalidomide disaster was properly understood. It wasn’t! Almost every aspect of the thalidomide disaster has been misunderstood.

Here’s more from the article.

“In a nutshell, the belief among people both inside and outside the pharmaceutical industry is that if the FDA doesn’t protect us in the way it has since 1962, we will have more thalidomide babies. This belief lies just below the surface of any discussion of FDA powers. Yet it doesn’t comport with the facts.”

“Because of misunderstandings and opportunism, the first thalidomide disaster fed the second thalidomide disaster, from which we suffer every day. It’s time the second thalidomide disaster got more attention.”