Science the foundation of doctor’s courage
She defied Big Pharma, preventing sale of drug that causes deformities in babies
Frances Kelsey, a Canadian doctor known for her unwavering opposition to the sleep-inducing and antinausea drug thalidomide, died on Friday at age 101.
As a medical officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1960s, Kelsey stopped the drug, whose side-effects include severe birth defects, from being marketed in the United States despite constant pressure from pharmaceutical companies.
Kelsey received the Order of Canada from Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, at her London home a day before she died, her daughter, Christine Kelsey, said.
“Her courage was based in her understanding of science. She knew the drug application was incomplete, so she asked for more information and she refused to accept it in an incomplete state because she knew it was important to protect the public from dangerous drugs,” she said. “Her courage came from her strength of conviction and her knowledge of science.”
First sold in Germany by Chemie Grunenthal in 1957, thalidomide was later approved for use in nearly 50 countries around the world. Canada counts 120 thalidomide survivors, all of whom were born with debilitating malformations, such as short arms, twisted hands and undeveloped lungs.
When the FDA received a request from the Merrell Company to market the drug in the U.S. in 1960, its application had to go through Kelsey. The company expected a routine review, but Kelsey asked for thalidomide, which was then seen as a miracle drug, to be studied further.
The company protested and lobbied her superiors to approve the drug. Her persistence was eventually vindicated when a German research- er uncovered a link between an epidemic of birth defects in his country and the administration of thalidomide. Her probing review and her defiance in the face of uneven odds spared Americans from experienc- ing the drug’s catastrophic effects. Frances Kathleen Oldham was born near Cobble Hill, on Vancouver Island, B.C., on July 24, 1914. Her father was a retired British army officer, and her mother came from a prosperous Scottish family.
The young “Frankie,” as she was called, grew up exploring the woods and shorelines, sometimes bringing home frogs for dissection. At McGill University in Montreal, she studied pharmacology — the effects of drugs on people — and received a bachelor’s degree in 1934 and a master’s degree in 1935.
A McGill professor urged her to apply for a research assistant job at the University of Chicago, where pharmacology professor Eugene Geiling accepted her without an interview. Geiling, who had mistaken the name Frances for the masculine Francis, addressed her by mail as “Mr. Oldham.”
“When a woman took a job in those days, she was made to feel as if she was depriving a man of the ability to support his wife and child,” Kelsey told the New York Times in 2010.
“But my professor said: ‘Don’t be stupid. Accept the job, sign your name and put ‘Miss’ in brackets afterward.’ ” With files from Star wire services