A drug known to cause severe birth defects that was never approved for use in the United States, but widely available elsewhere in the 1950s and 60s as a sedative and for treatment of nausea during pregnancy.

Thalidomide was sold in Europe, notably West Germany and Britain, in 1958. It was available without a prescription, and was advertised as a safe sedative. Pregnant women were among those who bought it on the advice of their doctors that it would lessen nausea and provide a safe aid for sleeping. Within the next three years, 12,000 infants were born in Europe and Canada with serious deformities, including missing or misshapen limbs, spinal cord defects, cleft lip or palate, eye and ear defects, and severe defects of the heart, lungs, kidneys, and digestive systems. By the end of 1961, thalidomide had been identified as the common link in thousands of these birth defects. (In...