Thalidomide: Morning Sickness and Nazis Fire - Episode 44

The Day's Dumpster Fire

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Have you or someone you love every had the misfortune of being pregnant and having to deal with morning sickness? Some women are lucky and they never get it. Some women get it mildly in their first trimesters. Other women are unlucky to have a severe case of it in their first trimester. And some women are cursed with morning sickness through their entire pregnancy.
In the 1950s and going into the 1960s, men returning home from the front lines of World War II were "making up for lost time away from the women of their lives and were proceeding to make lots of babies. These babies would later become known as the "Baby Boomers." As a result of this massive generation addition to the world's population, millions of women were getting pregnant and many were suffering from intense debilitating morning sickness.
With so few doctors left in Europe after the war, something had to be done to get these women some sort of relief for their morning sickness. That relief came in the form of a special medication that essentially eliminated morning sickness in all of Europe.
Thalidomide was touted as being so safe that it was sold over the counter and even the workers at the factory that made the stuff were given free bottles to take up.
This went fine until more and more babies were being born with terrible birth defects. It seemed like one after another, baby after baby was born with disfigured arms and legs or born without them in general. Mortality rates skyrocketed throughout Europe and many were left wondering what what causing all these birth defects. When the science community got together, they quickly drew a line to the common factor among all these birth defects... Thalidomide.
However, the manufacturer of this medication chose to hide the evidence and deny the connection. They opted to ignore the problem and even gaslight thousands and thousands of desperate mothers looking for answers to their problems.
It doesn't help that the men who created this drug were former Nazi scientist who were in trouble for crimes against humanity during the height of the holocaust!
Join Ed and Kara as they explore difficult terrain that is the Thalidomide Generation and how a failure to test one thing thoroughly upended the lives of over 100,000.
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