Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey, MD — research (pharmacology)
Courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, New York World Telegram & Sun Collection
In 1960, during her first month at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey (1914–2015) took a bold stance against inadequate testing and corporate pressure when she refused to approve release of thalidomide in the United States. The drug had been used as a sleeping pill and was later proven to have caused thousands of birth defects in Germany and Great Britain.
Read more about Dr. Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey.
For more information about birth defects, visit MedlinePlus.
