Daughter put this on her FB page tonight:

If you watched Call the Midwife tonight, or if you didn’t, I invite you to learn about Frances Oldham Kelsey, an FDA reviewer in the 60s who is responsible for refusing approval of Thalidomide in the US, saving who knows how many families from the same struggles felt by too many of those in Europe. This is a woman who made an incredible contribution to science without knowing how incredible it would be. And it is an example of why we NEED regulation. Businesses do not protect us, they watch out for their bottom line. Don’t let anyone tell you our “economy” is more important than taking care of each other. My students felt this story very strongly when we talked about it a few months ago, and it was my pleasure to tell them that the next hero could be sitting in that school at that moment. Learning matters. Effective government matters.

Frances Oldham Kelsey

Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey, CM (July 24, 1914 - August 7, 2015) was a Canadian pharmacologist and physician. As a reviewer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), she refused to authorize thalidomide for market because she had concerns about the drug’s safety. Her concerns proved to be justified when it was shown that thalidomide caused serious birth defects. Kelsey’s career intersected with the passage of laws strengthening FDA oversight of pharmaceuticals.

I remember the thalidomide scandal quite clearly, the ghastly pictures in Life Magazine and the incredible story of how this horror was kept out of the United States.