Thalidomide Bottle
1961

A drug making a comeback
Developed in West Germany in the mid-1950s, thalidomide was a drug prescribed for morning sickness in pregnant women. It had been released for sale in more than 40 countries before it was discovered that thalidomide caused a number of severe birth defects. The drug was taken off the market by 1961. This 200 mg bottle of thalidomide from Cincinnati's Wm. S. Merrell Co. never made it to the market, either. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had been slow to approve thalidomide, and the drug was never licensed for clinical use. Recently, there has been a revival in the use of thalidomide, as it has been shown to be effective in the treatment of leprosy and some AIDS-related symptoms.

	Gift from U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 1963
	In 1998, the FDA approved the use of thalidomide to treat leprosy.
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