@TheConversationUS Remember all the children that got polio because of talidomide? Thanks science!
@ptdnldsn Terrible to have to write it out but...
Read what above as an ironic critique to fablelike and positivists views of science which are often brought forward.
Thalidomide was what eventually brought to testing drugs in clinical trials.
@rastinza Thalidomide was an anti-nausea drug prescribed during pregnancy in other countries, but not approved in the US. It caused missing limbs in some of the babies whose mothers used it. There was a bad batch of polio vaccine in 1955 (The Cutter Incident) that killed 10 children and paralyzed more, but that’s a far cry from the half-million per year worldwide who died before the vaccine. Bad batches of medicine are not limited to vaccines. Hopefully quality control has improved since the 50s