Poisoned Before Birth: The Horror Behind Thalidomide
85K views · Apr 19, 2025 · Entertainment
Comments · 620
@historyandhearsay · 9 months ago · pinned
Since I have gotten several comments about this - I wanted to clarify - This episode has NOTHING to do with the more recent claims about Tylenol possibly causing autism. This episode was made MONTHS before those claims were made in the news 😆 But as a side note: Tylenol themselves have publicly stated (before & after this more recent news) that their products are not intended or recommended for pregnant women. Everyone will do what they will based on their doctors advice (I know typically doctors say it’s okay for pregnant women) & their own convictions, but this episode it not taking about any of that - so just thought I would clarify. :)
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@atlanticjem2012 · 9 months ago
A friend of my family was a thalidomide baby, born with no legs from the knees down. He used to scuba dive with my parents. My dad would carry him down to the water and then carry the gear over. Once he strapped his fins to his stubs, he was the fastest swimmer in the group! I met him when I was a teenager. At first I didn't connect the dots to who he was with the stories I had heard. I realized later it was because I met him standing. He was wearing prosthetics under a suit. I just remember thinking "he's really tall." Later on when I realized who he was, I had to laugh... he can be as tall as he wants... 😂
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@aryan1956 · 1 year ago (edited)
I was born in 1956 & had twin friends victims of Thalidomide. One was born with no arms at all while the other had a few inches of one arm & the other arm with only a finger growing out of the elbow area of the other. I was amazed at how the second twin could crochet & knit better than I could.
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@robsgirl7778 · 1 year ago
Call the midwife covered these births one season and it's just so heartbreaking
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@katiemurphy1197 · 1 year ago
So pharmaceutical companies have always been this way…
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@wakeuptoBlessings · 1 year ago
I was born in ‘55. My mom took thialomide when she was pregnant with me. But only a couple times. She later told me how grateful she was that something told her not to continue with it…
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@October-o6f · 1 year ago
I remember my grandma telling me that she had a MASSIVE scare because she had been given a medication for nausea during her first pregnancy, shortly before all of this came out here in the US, and she couldn’t remember the name of the medication so she just had to wait and see. I cannot imagine that kind of fear! <br><br>I’m also always shocked by how long they left it on the market in the UK and USA after it was taken off the market in Germany!
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@juliebrooke6099 · 1 year ago
I was born in 1961. There was a boy in my year group in a nearby school who had deformed hands and no arms and I remember my mother explaining to me that he was a Thalidomide baby and how lucky she felt that she had never taken it. When I was pregnant myself I made sure not to take even a headache tablet and I even continued that as long as I was breastfeeding my babies.
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@mamawvondak · 9 months ago
My oldest child was injured by Benedictine. His spine was deformed. Fortunately, the doctor called me and told me to stop taking it right away. So, my son’s spine wasn’t as damaged as it could have been. But his spine where the nerves come through at the bottom near the tailbone was narrow and the nerves were slightly pinched. He had pain his whole life until he got surgery in his mid 30’s. He’s fine now. But there are children who got spinabifida.
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@swordmanck · 9 months ago
who would have thought letting war criminals off and let them start a medical company would have turned out like this
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@1983aw · 1 year ago
You think the price of those meds are bad, remember the inventor of insulin wanted it to be free. <br><br>Greed is a disease too.
39
@jennson7032 · 1 year ago (edited)
This makes so much sense. My uncle was one of these babies. My grandma took this because she was so sick with him. He was deformed and born without ears. He was born in 1962
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