The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

As the increasingly acrimonious Merrell-Kelsey battle was unfolding in Washington, DC, more ominous reports began to trickle in from Europe. Women who had been prescribed the drug in Britain and France during their pregnancies began to notice severe congenital malformations in their babies. Some had malformed urinary systems. Some had heart problems. Some had intestinal defects. The most visibly horrific manifestation was that some babies were born with severely shortened limbs, while some had no limbs at all. All in all, about eight thousand malformed babies would be reported in the next few years, and another seven thousand may have died in utero—both likely severe underestimates of the actual degree of harm. Yet even as one alarming case report after another streamed in from Europe, Merrell remained icily sanguine about the drug. Despite Kelsey’s objections, the company had distributed the drug to about twelve hundred US physicians as an “investigational agent.” (Smith, Kline & French, another company, was also involved in the patient trial.)

Icily sanguine