Leprosy Mailing List – July 21, 2024
Ref.: (LML) Widukind Lenz and thalidomide
From: Joel Almeida, Mumbai, India
Dear Pieter and colleagues,
Widukind Lenz has a special place in the history of epidemiology. He died on 25 Feb 1995.
"On November 11, 1961, a date he remembered well, he first began to suspect that the sedative Contergan (thalidomide) could be the cause of this 'new' malformation syndrome. Three days later, his suspicion turned into certainty and he communicated these observations to the manufacturer — Grünenthal — and recommended withdrawal of the agent. Only 13 days later, the company withdrew the drug from the market.
In the meantime, Lenz had communicated on the matter at the meeting of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Pediatrics Society in Düsseldorf, where he pointed out that fourteen mothers of children with this syndrome had taken a specific compound; of twenty mothers with 'normal' children, only one had taken the same compound (and that at the end of her pregnancy)."
Epidemiologists sometimes analyse facts. Sometimes the facts disclose an emergency affecting the integrity of human limbs. Then time is of the essence.
Joel Almeida
LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder
LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/
Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << editorlml@gmail.com
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