Word: contergan
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Dates: during 1962-1962
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...Thalidomide was made or marketed, alone or in combination with other drugs, in a dozen countries under 50 trade names, notably Contergan (West Germany), Distaval (Britain), Softenon (Portugal, Belgium and Austria...
...Among foreign brand names: Kevadon (Canada), Distaval, Valgis, Tensival, Valgraine (Britain), Contergan, Grippex, Polygripan (Germany), Softenon (several countries...
Chemie Gruenenthal burbled: "Contergan is especially well suited for calming down anxious, nervous and restless children . . . Excellent for babies." Obstetricians who found that it tranquilized pregnant women prescribed it to allay morning sickness. Consumption shot up in many countries. Last April, the Canadian subsidiary of Cincinnati's Wm. S. Merrell Co. put it on prescription sale in Canada...
...malformations in newborn babies, plus an upsurge in one hitherto rare condition: phocomelia or "seal limbs." so called because the hands and feet are like flippers, attached close to the body with little or no arm or leg. Hamburg University's Pediatrician Widukind Lenz. 43. began to suspect Contergan because he found that in many cases the mothers had taken it late in the second month of pregnancy, when the fetus' limbs are forming...
...similar reports multiplied, a four-university team was set up to check every malformed birth since January 1959 in West Germany's most populous state (Nordrhein-Westfalen, 15.5 million people). Chemie Gruenenthal took Contergan. and every compound drug containing thalidomide off the market. And all 18,500 doctors in Canada got a December warning from the Merrell Co.: "Kevadon should not be administered to pregnant women nor to premenopausal women who may become pregnant." U.S. investigators using the drug got a similar warning...