Aussie doctor alerted world to the risks of thalidomide, before falling from grace
William McBride Obstetrician b May 25, 1927 d June 27, 2018
The story of Dr William McBride, who has died aged 91, has all the hallmarks of a classic morality tale. He rose from humble beginnings to launch a brilliant medical career, receiving international recognition and honour. Then came a very human failure and a dramatic fall from grace, followed by redemption.
It is thanks to McBride that the world was alerted to the dangers of the drug thalidomide, which led to babies being born with missing, shortened or malformed limbs. The devastating effects of the anti-nausea drug, prescribed to many pregnant women, were estimated to have affected 12,000 children worldwide.
McBride’s discovery was a turning point in the protection of life in utero.
Thalidomide was taken off the market, preventing further tragedy, and his warning eventually led to the recommendation that no drugs – including nicotine and alcohol – should be ingested by pregnant women.
William Griffith McBride was born in Sydney, one of three children of John and Myrine McBride. He spent his childhood in Dungog, in the Hunter Valley. He loved the country and always said he would have liked to have been a farmer.
He graduated from the University of Sydney medical school in 1949, and in 1962 it awarded him a doctorate of medicine for his thesis on recurrent miscarriages.
After a spell at the University of London, he was appointed, aged 28, as medical superintendent at Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Sydney, then the largest obstetrics and gynaecology hospital in the southern hemisphere. It was here in 1961 that he noticed three of his patients had given birth to babies with severe deformities. The babies later died. The women had been prescribed thalidomide before tests had been done on pregnant laboratory animals to determine its effect on foetuses.
Twice between April and July 1961, he contacted thalidomide’s manufacturer, Distillers, to warn that the drug had been associated with malformations and deaths. ‘‘I have had four deaths at birth in the last eight weeks. One baby has been born with six fingers, one with fingers joined together [and] one with malformed toes,’’ he told a Distillers executive in 1961.
Distillers ignored him and kept promoting the drug in Australia, boasting of its ‘‘exceptional safety’’ and trying to list it on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
McBride wrote an article for The Lancet in
June 1961 that warned of the dangers of thalidomide. The article was rejected, but he wrote a letter in December that year which was published. When his finding was confirmed, it led to a flood of legal cases against Distillers and sparked a renowned investigation by The Sunday Times in London that led to a payout of £20 million for British victims in 1973, followed by an additional £20m in 2009. The Lancet has since said McBride’s letter was one of its papers that made a ‘‘crucial contribution to science and human health’’.
McBride was hailed as a hero, with headlines proclaiming him as ‘‘Protector of the Unborn’’. He became well-known in Sydney society and was showered with awards. He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1969; in 1972 he was awarded Father of the Year and, in 1977, the Order of Australia.
Despite experiencing the trappings of wealth and success, he never forgot what he saw as his true calling – medicine. He had an extensive obstetrics practice and delivered more than 9000 babies.
In 1971, he caused international alarm by stating that imipramine, an anti-depressant, caused birth defects. The evidence was rejected but, undaunted by the furore, he carried on with his research. In the mid-1970s, he announced that debendox, another antinausea medication, also caused birth defects. There was scant evidence at the time to back these claims, but McBride testified against the American manufacturer and the company withdrew the drug in 1983.
In 1982, he published a pilot study in a scientific journal suggesting the drug scopolamine, which he said bore similarities to debendox, should not be taken in early pregnancy as it caused birth defects in the rabbits used in an experiment. This claim would prove to be his undoing.
In 1987, the journalist Norman Swan, in a joint story for the Sydney Morning Herald and the ABC’s Science Show, stated that McBride had failed to properly record the amount of drug that the rabbits were given, or the number of rabbits tested. Swan went on to win a Walkley award for his investigation. In contrast, McBride’s career started to unravel.
In 1988 he was found guilty of fraudulent medical research. He was then called before the Medical Tribunal of New South Wales to face both research fraud and negligence charges, including the claim, brought by the Health Complaints Commission, that he had performed too many caesarean sections.
The tribunal dragged on from 1989 to 1993. Eventually he was cleared of misconduct but found guilty of scientific fraud and struck off.
Some friends shunned him, and he had to sell property to pay huge legal fees.
In 1994, he published his autobiography
Killing the Messenger, and in 1996 made an unsuccessful attempt to be reinstated to the medical register.
He never gave up his desire to practise medicine and, in November 1998, he was judged to have expressed sufficient remorse and finally won the right to practise again.
Tribunal judge Reg Blanch, who eventually reinstated McBride, described him as ‘‘one of the most distinguished obstetricians and gynaecologists that Australia has produced’’ and said "it is my view that he is a fit and proper person to resume the practice of medicine again’’.
McBride is survived by his wife, Patricia, children Catherine, Louise, John, and David, and seven grandchildren. –
In 1961 he noticed three of his patients had given birth to babies with severe deformities. The babies later died. The women had been prescribed thalidomide.