Social Effects Of Thalidomide

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, a pharmaceutical drug hit the market that caused a global uproar. Thalidomide, an over-the-counter sedative and anti-nausea drug caused dramatic birth defects called phocomelia, in newborns. Because one of thalidomide’s purposes was as an anti-nausea drug, a large section of its buyers were pregnant women. Birth defects included being born without arms or legs, blind and deaf, heart defects or intestinal abnormalities. Some of the babies were only a trunk with an eyeless, earless head, some were mentally retarded. Around 10,000 babies were born with these symptoms all around the world. (N. Schlager, 2008)
Body 1- What is thalidomide
Thalidomide, C13H10N2O4, was first developed in 1954 by Chemie Grünenthal, a West German pharmaceutical company. The drug never underwent a proper chronic study. It had …show more content…
Some of the babies were intellectually disabled, which made it very hard to fit in with society, and then on top of that, they have the shortened limbs and all the health problems. Some parents didn’t want their children because of these deformations so a lot of babies were in orphanages. Today only about 3,000 thalidomide babies are still alive. These children have to learn how to do normal everyday activity’s way differently. Figure 5 is a picture of children’s prosthetics that the thalidomide babies used. These prosthetics that the children used to help move around, would look strange and children without disability’s might see them and not want to hang around them because they are different or they can’t do all the things that non-disabled children can do. This relates to the social factor because in order for thalidomide children to do normal everyday chores and activity’s they would have to wear huge prosthetics, which separates them from non-disabled children which can have a big social impact on the