Campaigning US doctor dies at 101
Print Edition
FRANCES Kelsey, a Canadian doctor known for her tenacity in keeping a dangerous drug given to pregnant women off the US market, has died at age 101.
She died on Friday morning, less than 24 hours after receiving the Order of Canada in a private ceremony at her daughter’s home in London, Ontario.
Kelsey was a medical officer for the US Food and Drug Administration in the early 1960s when she raised concerns about thalidomide, a drug that was being used in other countries to treat morning sickness and insomnia in pregnant women.
Despite pressure from the makers of thalidomide to approve the drug, she refused, and as a result, thousands of children were saved from crippling birth defects.
After the sedative was prescribed in 1950, thousands of children whose mothers took the drug were born with abnormally short limbs and in some cases without any arms, legs or hips. The birth defects were reported in Europe, Australia, Canada and Japan.
In 2010, the British government apologized to people hurt by the drug, after earlier agreeing to pay 20 million pounds (US$31 million) to victims.
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