What was the global impact of thalidomide? On September 24th, the Department of History, the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies/Disability Studies, and the Institute of African Studies at 杏吧原创 University came together to host two speakers to Ottawa as part of a day-long meeting on the transnational history of the infamous drug thalidomide. Developed by the German company , the drug was officially marketed from the mid-1950s to the early to mid-1960s under dozens of brand names. Dr. Susanne Klausen, medical historian and organizer of the event, pointed out in her introduction that thalidomide was a 鈥渄rug in search of a disease.鈥 However, while pharmaceuticals marketed the drug as a cure for many symptoms, it has gained its notorious reputation because of its use as a remedy for morning sickness in pregnant women. Although the drug was advertised as being 鈥渃ompletely safe,鈥 it caused severe birth defects 鈥 including deformed and/or absent organs, phocomelia, and several other life threatening deformities 鈥 in children whose pregnant mothers had taken the drug during the first trimester of pregnancy.
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