"Distaval" (Thalidomide) and Foetal Abnormalities

Was thalidomide a placebo hypnotic?

“…20 That this dosage was standard is suggested by a September 1961 report in the same journal on 13 cases of neuropathy following use of Distaval as a hypnotic; the authors note that most of the patients took the 'usual' dose of 100 mg. 21 Five months later, a letter from two doctors in Plymouth reported that a woman who gave birth to a deformed infant (who died within minutes) took 100 mg of thalidomide nightly for the first 5 months of her pregnancy. 22 Investigating a cluster of ten deformed infants born in Stirlingshire in 1961-62, Speirs found that in four cases the mother took 100 mg at night and in a fifth, three 25 mg tablets per day; in two additional cases, the mother took between 100 and 200 mg. 23 The placebo dosage seems to have travelled with the drug. In a Canadian case reported in 1962, a woman hospitalised during early pregnancy was given 100 mg of thalidomide each evening for 3 days and 200 mg on the fourth.…”

William McBride: alerted the world to the dangers of thalidomide in fetal development

“…In the months after McBride’s Lancet letter, doctors from around the world reported observing severe abnormalities in babies delivered to women who had taken thalidomide during pregnancy, including UK doctors writing to The BMJ 78. Scientific papers describing thalidomide’s link to birth defects began appearing by the middle of 1962, including key papers from Lenz and a study published in The BMJ 910…”