Wonder Drug: The Hidden Victims of America's Secret Thalidomide Scandal
Author: Jennifer Vanderbes
Format: Paperback, 432 pages, 153mm x 234mm, 560 g
Published: 2023, HarperCollins Publishers, United Kingdom
Genre: True Stories
Longlisted for the Andrew 2024 Carnegie Medal for Non-Fiction
The shocking, never-before-told story of America's thalidomide victims
In Germany on Christmas Day 1956 a baby girl was born without ears. She was the first victim of the notorious thalidomide epidemic. There would be over 10,000 more across 46 countries.
For years the world believed the United States had avoided the catastrophe. After Frances Kelsey at the Food and Drug Administration became suspicious of the dangers of thalidomide in 1960, she led a successful fight to block its commercial approval.
But now, having probed government and corporate archives and interviewed hundreds of key players, Jennifer Vanderbes reveals a darker truth that lay buried for decades. The toxic sedative ostensibly 'never sold' in America was widely distributed for over five years under the guise of clinical trials, reaching hundreds of pregnant women. Scores of American babies were, in fact, born with birth defects likely caused by the drug.
Wonder Drug gives a voice to these hidden victims of the twentieth century's biggest medical scandal, shedding light on the deceptive practices of Big Pharma that still endanger lives around the world today.
Jennifer Vanderbes is an award-winning novelist, journalist and screenwriter whose work has been translated into sixteen languages. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Atlantic. Her novels and non-fiction have received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the New York Public Library. She was named a 2019-2020 NEH Public Scholar for her work on WONDER DRUG.
Longlisted for the Andrew 2024 Carnegie Medal for Non-Fiction
The shocking, never-before-told story of America's thalidomide victims
In Germany on Christmas Day 1956 a baby girl was born without ears. She was the first victim of the notorious thalidomide epidemic. There would be over 10,000 more across 46 countries.
For years the world believed the United States had avoided the catastrophe. After Frances Kelsey at the Food and Drug Administration became suspicious of the dangers of thalidomide in 1960, she led a successful fight to block its commercial approval.
But now, having probed government and corporate archives and interviewed hundreds of key players, Jennifer Vanderbes reveals a darker truth that lay buried for decades. The toxic sedative ostensibly 'never sold' in America was widely distributed for over five years under the guise of clinical trials, reaching hundreds of pregnant women. Scores of American babies were, in fact, born with birth defects likely caused by the drug.
Wonder Drug gives a voice to these hidden victims of the twentieth century's biggest medical scandal, shedding light on the deceptive practices of Big Pharma that still endanger lives around the world today.
Jennifer Vanderbes is an award-winning novelist, journalist and screenwriter whose work has been translated into sixteen languages. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Atlantic. Her novels and non-fiction have received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the New York Public Library. She was named a 2019-2020 NEH Public Scholar for her work on WONDER DRUG.