Dark Remedy: The Impact Of Thalidomide And Its Revival As A Vital Medicine

Twentieth-century science is too complex for any one reader's apprehension, so we look for stories that help us grasp its enormity. The jubilant discovery, demonization, and subsequent rehabilitation of thalidomide offers a wide-ranging outline of public attitudes toward science following World War II, and the authors of Dark Remedy: The Impact of Thalidomide and Its Revival As a Vital Medicine tell the story well. Historian Rock Brynner and embryologist Trent Stephens--who may have finally determined the drug's mechanism of action in 1998--treat us to both a devastating indictment of the under-regulated pharmaceutical industry of the 1950s and a penetrating study of thalidomide's reintroduction into mainstream medicine through the black market. The powerful anti-inflammatory properties of the drug make it a popular choice for treating arthritis, leprosy, some cancers, AIDS, MS, and many other debilitating illnesses, but it has only recently won grudging approval. Though the its tone can be acidic (in one instance referring to the "Utopian prosthetics custom-designed for the deformities caused by Utopian medicine"), the book is, for the most part, fair to the corporations that caused and then ignored the epidemic of birth defects, the victims who understandably tried to prevent the drug's revival, and the regulators who were too often bound by short-sighted legislation to do their jobs. The heroes and villains are larger than life, the stories and the science are equally compelling, and Dark Remedy ultimately combines the best elements of journalism and myth. --Rob Lightner