I would suggest that the problem with Thalidomide was that European drug agencies did not test the drug far enough. Our head of the department testing drugs, made her mark by refusing to certify it for general use until after newly pregnant women who had purchased it in Europe started delivering deformed children, from taking it for headaches, I believe, shortly after they became pregnant.

I guess there was no reason to suspect that it was a teratogenic drug, one that affects unborn children, especially in the early development of the pregnancy, so it was speedily approved in Europe, and perhaps in England.

Even when the deformaties only affected women who had bought the drug abroad, the fact that the FDA had not yet endorsed it gave them some unwarranted favorable publicity.

Dave