The U.S. has more thalidomide survivors than the government admits

Cincinnati-based pharmaceutical company William S. Merrell applied for FDA approval of the German-made drug in late 1960, expecting it to hit store shelves by Christmas. FDA medical reviewer Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey blocked the approval, and her persistence reshaped the agency's drug testing rules going forward. President John F. Kennedy later praised her publicly for sparing the country "this terrible human tragedy which has been visited on families in Germany."

That framing left out something. Thalidomide reached American patients anyway, distributed for testing purposes even without formal approval, and doctors gave it to pregnant women who often had no idea what they were taking. Their children grew up with the physical effects of that exposure, but the official version of the story, the one where Kelsey's diligence kept the drug out of the country, never accounted for them.

Those survivors are still here, and they say the U.S. Government has never formally acknowledged what happened to them the way other countries have addressed thalidomide's toll on their own citizens. Without that recognition, they've gotten little in the way of support or compensation.

A hero saved the country from tragedy, according to the official story. The tragedy happened anyway.