The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7161 p227-229
18 August 2001

This page
Reprint
Photocopy

  Community pharmacy
  Careers in pharmacy
  Remuneration
  Thalidomide
  Health care databases
  Biotechnology
  The Council
  Statutory fees
  Dry mouth

Thalidomide

Drug residues

From Ms K. Durrant

Further to your article on new uses for thalidomide (PJ, July 28), as a librarian, I read not long ago about children who were deformed because of their mothers’ use of thalidomide and who were now having their own children. That article suggested that the effects of the drug can in some cases be passed on to the children of sufferers. I do hope that, in the research that looks so promising for people with other disorders, any drug residues that may be left in the body are given due consideration as to the effect they might have on any children the patient may think of having after treatment with thalidomide.

Kay Durrant
Whitehall Lane, Surrey

Dr B. ROGER ALLEN (consultant dermatologist, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham) replies:

The limb deformities characteristic of thalidomide damage were well recognised, although rare, before the drug was first manufactured. It is clear, therefore, that the abnormalities may arise as a result of other factors, and in some cases, there is an inheritable disorder. There is no evidence that the deformities caused by thalidomide can be passed on to the next generation, and it is believed that in the one or two cases where this is reported as having happened, the inheritable form of phocomelia was misdiagnosed as being due to thalidomide.

Back to Top

Previous Topic (Remuneration)
Next Topic (Health care databases)
Send your letter to The Editor