Contergan had a series of advantages over other sleeping pills at the time; barbiturates could be lethal in overdoses and was known to be addictive, whereas Contergan was tested on lab animals and "proven" to be of an extremely nontoxic kind, as well as totally non-addictive.
Contergan was really popular, and recommended during pregnancy, since barbiturates is known to be addictive et cetera.
In the advertisments, Contergan was hailed as being "especially suitable during pregnancies".
It was synthesized in West Germany in 1953 and marketed by the Stolberg-near-Aachen-based pharmaceutical company Grünenthal from October 1, 1957 to 1961, mainly in Germany and Britain.
It was later (1960–61) found to be teratogenic in fetal development, most visibly as a cause of amelia or phocomelia, especially if taken during the first 25 to 50 days of pregnancy.
In Germany, where it was marketed as Contergan, the term Contergankind was coined to describe affected children.
In Germany, Contergan was suspected as a cause of malformations as early as in 1958, but it was not until 1961 that Widukind Lenz was able to establish the use of thalidomide by pregnant women as the cause.
One of her students drew her attention to the congenital malformations occurring in Germany and England, and Taussig campaigned successfully against the introduction of thalidomide into the U.S.A. The first Contergan process opened in Hamburg on January 23, 1963.
The new substance named thalidomide became the active agent of the calming and sleep-inducing drugContergan that was introduced on to the market on October 1, 1957 in West Germany.
On January 18, 1968 the Contergan case was brought to trial at the criminal division of the Aachen regional court.
Even more than 40 years after the Contergan disaster, the trust fund established by the Federal Republic of Germany and the pharmaceutical company Grünenthal for the financial compensation of victims is still receiving applications for compensation although the deadline was December 31, 1983.
Contergan had many derivatives, one to combat the flu, and another as a sedative for adults.
A third, Contergan Saft, was aimed at mothers for use in sedating their infants.
The negative reports that were coming to light were so devastating that even the company's clinical research director was forced to admit that thalidomide caused serious problems.
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Thalidomide under the German trademark Contergan became a synonym for tragedy.
The legal and medical questions were so complex that it took seven years to prepare the material for a court case.
In addition to these tragic effects, thalidomide also had another consequence: not only in Germany, but also world-wide; drug laws were passed and existing regulations tightened up in order to increase safety in the production and use of drugs.
In 1957Contergan, a sleeping pill and sedative, considered especially safe for pregnant women, was introduced to the German market.
Soon suspicion arose, that the deformation of the children was connected to the use of Contergan.
Vividly, the mothers and fathers, who were affected by Contergan tell their stories of the periods of pregnancy and the moments after the birth of their children.
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Heinz Halwachs is one of the so-called "Contergan Children": he was born without arms.
The cause was the medication Contergan, which was prescribed to his mother during the pregnancy.
This was a terrible blow for the whole family, but Heinz Halwachs is an inspiring example of someone who has successfully taken charge of his own life, despite a physical disability.
Such a suspicion was suggestive enough to cause Dr Frances Kelsey, the Medical Officer of the American Food and Drug Administration, to reject the pharmaceutical company's application to market Kevadon (Thalidomide) in the United States, because among other reasons, she was not satisfied that the drug would be safe to take during pregnancy.
(This was to encourage gynaecologists and obstetricians to prescribe Contergan and Contergan Forte (Thalidomide) to patients).
When questioned at the trials about a report in which he had written that he had 'stopped administration' of the drug in three cases because of side-effects, Jung declared that the expression 'stopped administration' was badly chosen.
Eine genealogische Studie des Zusammenhangs wissenschaftlicher Diskurse und biographischer Erfahrungen [Contergan.
Abstract: In this genealogical study, Walburga FREITAG explores the conditions of subjectivity-building in relation to the powerful medical discourse on Contergan.
The discourse theory of Michel FOUCAULT dominates the key words for the empirical research: discourse, knowledge, power and body.
The Contergan (thalidomide) catastrophe required an explanation free from the specific interests of the pharmaceutical industry and demanded methodically reliable and scientifically independent studies into medication risks, in particular after admission to the market.
As the Contergan experience showed, there are severe risks that then become obvious only when the drug is used in outpatient care.
These considerations motivated the constitution of the Drug Utilisation Research Group (DURG) at the European WHO Office (1964).
Furthermore, it had one remarkable property: overdoses simply caused prolonged sleep, not death.
The drug was first marketed in Germany in 1957 under the name Contergan, and in the UK in April 1958 as Distaval.
Later, compound preparations which combined thalidomide with other drugs were marketed for a wide variety of indications: Asmaval for asthma, Tensival for hypertension, Valgraine for migraine, and so forth.
1995 April 21, ATN 221 - Thalidomide and HIV: Several Possible Uses(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-25)
The word thalidomide provokes alarm in those who remember it as the notorious cause of birth defects in thousands of European babies born in the 1950s and 60s.
It had been widely prescribed as a sedative under the trade name Contergan until its teratogenic effects became apparent.
It was never marketed in the U.S., and in fact has been used, often irrelevantly, as a defense of stringent U.S. drug regulations.
While used for a variety of indications, its most pronounced effect was that of sleep induction.
First marketed in November 1956 under the names Grippex and Contergan (Lenz, 1988), thalidomide subsequently became available in almost 50 countries throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Teratogenicity was not a primary concern because animal studies had shown no evidence of teratogenicity.
Used in Europe by pregnant women to treat morning sickness because of its unusual 'safety' after extensive testing,(1) thalidomide was the first medicine discovered to be highly teratogenic.(2,3) In addition, thalidomide's other marketed use was as a sedative, an action originally recognized as one of its primary side effects.(4,5)
Thalidomide was first marketed in Germany under the trade name "Contergan" in 1956,(6) then in England in 1958 under the name of "Distaval".
It soon became the third largest selling drug in Europe and was sold in 48 countries.(
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From US Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.
Annotated collection of English and German web resources providing information on the drug's physico-chemical properties, effects, side effects, the German Contergan disaster in the early 1960s, and the current use of thalidomide.
Description of this medication, focused on its use in treating myeloma.
