Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will issue a long-awaited apology to thalidomide survivors and their families in Australia.
It was the pregnancy wonder drug that promised Australia n women in the early 1960s a quick fix for their side effects – an over-the-counter cure-all for everything from morning sickness to insomnia. But soon after, babies across Australia were born with shortened or absent limbs, blindness, deafness or malformed internal organs. That wonder drug, thalidomide, became known as one of the world’s worst pharmaceutical disaster s.
The tragedy changed everything about the way medicines were tested and approved in Australia, where there had been no system for evaluating drugs before they hit the market. It eventually spawned the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the well-known agency now charged with ensuring medicines in Australia are of the highest standards. But it has also caused survivors a lifetime of pain, and the federal government has never said sorry for its role in the disaster. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will change that, with a long-awaited apology to thalidomide survivors and their familie
Australia Thalidomide Survivors Apology Pharmaceutical Disaster
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