Editing Phocomelia (section)

===Thalidomide===
{{Main|Thalidomide scandal}}
[[Thalidomide]] was released onto the market in 1958 in West Germany under the name Contergan. Primarily prescribed as a sedative or hypnotic, thalidomide also claimed to cure "anxiety, insomnia, gastritis, and tension".<ref name="miller">{{cite journal |last1=Miller |first1=Marylin T. |title=Thalidomide embryopathy: a model for the study of congenital incomitant horizontal strabismus |journal=Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society |volume=89 |pages=623–74 |year=1991 |pmid=1808819 |pmc=1298636 }}</ref> Afterwards it was used against [[nausea]] and to alleviate [[morning sickness]] in pregnant women. Thalidomide became an [[over-the-counter]] drug in Germany around 1960, i.e. it could be bought without a [[prescription medication|prescription]]. Shortly after the drug was sold, in Germany between 5,000 and 7,000 infants were born with phocomelia. Only 40% of these children survived.<ref name="miller" />

Research also proves that although phocomelia did exist through the 1940s and 1950s, cases of severe phocomelia multiplied in the 1960s when thalidomide was released in Germany; the direct cause was traced to thalidomide.<ref>[http://www.teratology.org/jfs/Pharmaceutical.html "Pharmaceutical Teratogens"]. Teratology Society—Birth Defects Research. 8 December 2007. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100507104931/http://www.teratology.org/jfs/Pharmaceutical.html |date=May 7, 2010 }}</ref> The statistic was given that "50 percent of the mothers with deformed children had taken thalidomide during the first trimester of pregnancy." Throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States, 10,000 cases were reported of infants with phocomelia; only 50% of the 10,000 survived. Thalidomide became effectively linked to death or severe disabilities among babies. Those subjected to thalidomide while in the womb experienced limb deficiencies in that the long limbs either were not developed or presented themselves as stumps. Other effects included deformed eyes, hearts, alimentary and urinary tracts, blindness and deafness.<ref>{{cite book | title = The Oxford Companion to the Body | last = Cuthbert | first = Alan | date = 2001–2003 | publisher = Oxford University Press | url = http://www.answers.com/topic/thalidomide | access-date = 26 February 2012}}</ref>