Teratogenicity of drugs

Extract

The thalidomide disaster shook the pharmaceutical world. to its foundations. It clearly required that action be taken to prevent by all means possible a recurrence of any similar catastrophe. At the same time, attention was drawn to the occurrence of adverse reactions to drugs of other kinds which had already been the subject of restricted and somewhat sporadic scrutiny, particularly in the United States. There the haematologist, Maxwell Wintrope, had initiated a scheme for collecting reports of haematological reactions to drugs, the importance of which had been brought to the attention of the profession through the cases of aplastic anaemia resulting from the antibiotic chloramphenicol. In Britain, the Committee on Safety of Drugs was formed, of which Sir Derrick Dunlop was the first Chairman, and a subcommittee was set up to deal with the collection of adverse drug reactions. Committees were also set up in Canada, Australia, and a number of other countries including New Zealand, where the Committee is under the joint auspices of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Pharmacology Department of the University of Otago, and the Health Department. Because the National Poisons Information Centre appeared to offer an appropriate situation for administering such a scheme, I was asked to undertake the task of Medical Assessor and it is reallv in that capacity that I have prepared this paper, rather than as Director of the National Poisons Information Centre.