Stalling for Survival - A Lonely Fight Against a Deadly Medicine
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1960, FDA scientist Frances Oldham Kelsey is tasked with approving an application for a mild sedative to be sold in America. The drug is popular across Europe and is touted to be free of side effects, so this should be a routine job. But something doesn't sit right with Frances and she starts digging for evidence to support her suspicions. As the pharmaceutical company pushes for speedy approval, Frances discovers the drug's devastating impact. Katie Hafner, host of The Lost Women of Science podcast, joins Tim to explain why America should remember the woman who kept Thalidomide off the market.
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Transcript
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| 0:46.3 | In a neat Washington, D.C. office with peeling green walls, |
| 0:53.3 | time is running out for softly spoken, incredibly |
| 0:57.8 | thorough Dr. Francis Oldham Kelsey. It's November 1960. Two months earlier, a thick bundle of papers, |
| 1:08.5 | several phone books worth, arrived on her desk at the Food and Drug |
| 1:12.6 | Administration. It was an application for a new drug to be approved for the American market. |
| 1:19.9 | Francis and her small team had been given 60 days to approve or refuse a drug, and this application was expected to sail through. |
| 1:30.3 | The drug has been given the name Kevodon, and is reportedly a side-effect-free sedative |
| 1:37.3 | that can ease anxiety, insomnia and morning sickness. |
| 1:41.3 | For years it's been used by millions of people in Europe, Africa and Australia. |
| 1:48.0 | Manufacturer William S. Merrill is so confident of a swift approval in the States, |
| 1:53.0 | it's already printed promotional material for the Wanda drug, |
| 1:57.0 | and gathered the ingredients to make 15 million pills. |
| 2:02.2 | But something isn't sitting right with Francis Oldham Kelsey. |
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