Thalidomide caused severe birth defects in US babies. Now in their 50s and 60s, survivors speak out plus more
The Defender’s Big Pharma Watch delivers the latest headlines related to pharmaceutical companies and their products, including vaccines, drugs, and medical devices and treatments. The views expressed in the below excerpts from other news sources do not necessarily reflect the views of The Defender. Our goal is to provide readers with breaking news that affects human health and the environment.
The drug thalidomide first surfaced in Europe during the 1950s. It was initially used as a sedative, but doctors discovered it was also an effective treatment for colds, headaches, nausea — and morning sickness.
It wasn’t until 1961, after tens of thousands of pregnant women had been prescribed the drug abroad, that thalidomide was definitively linked to infant deaths and severe birth defects in an estimated 10,000 children in over 46 countries — and taken off the market.
According to Jennifer Vanderbes, author of the book Wonder Drug, the drug was being distributed in the U.S. under the guise of clinical trials. Although the FDA learned about the birth defects in 1961, Vanderbes’s research shows that the agency didn’t move to recall the drug until the summer of 1962.
Revolving Door: DEA’s No.2 Quits Amid Reports of Previous Consulting Work for Big Pharma
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s second-in-command has quietly stepped down amid reporting by The Associated Press that he once consulted for a pharmaceutical distributor sanctioned for a deluge of suspicious painkiller shipments and did similar work for the drugmaker that became the face of the opioid epidemic: Purdue Pharma.
Louis Milione’s four years of consulting for Big Pharma preceded his 2021 return to the DEA to serve as Administrator Anne Milgram’s top deputy, renewing concerns in the agency and beyond about the revolving door between government and industry and its potential impact on the DEA’s mission to police drug companies blamed for tens of thousands of American overdose deaths.
“Working for Purdue Pharma should not help you get a higher job in government,” said Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a watchdog for corporate influence in the federal government. “Too much collegiality is a problem. It’s hard to view your past and potentially future colleagues as scofflaws. Any independent person would find this abhorrent.”
Malaria Vaccines Are Finally Here: The Top Shots and What’s on the Horizon Next
While researchers have spent decades searching for malaria vaccines, only two have ever been authorized, a situation many scientists hope to change as they race to leverage new technology against one of humanity’s oldest and deadliest foes — including a breakthrough mRNA vaccine unveiled by researchers this week.
Researchers in New Zealand and Australia announced a breakthrough malaria vaccine using mRNA technology Thursday. According to a study in Nature Immunology, the mRNA vaccine can stimulate a different part of the immune system than many other vaccines.
The shot focuses on developing protective cell-based responses to the malaria parasite that could halt an infection instead throughout the body rather than antibody-based responses that tend to be less useful once the parasite has reached the liver, which it infects as a key part of its life cycle.
The University of Melbourne’s Lauren Holz, a research officer at the Doherty Institute and co-author of the paper, said this could potentially “generate a broader and hopefully more protective immune response.” The research is still in its early stages and has not been tested on people yet. After the promising result, the team said they are planning to take the vaccine into clinical trials, a process they expect will take several years.
GSK-Funded Report on Adult Vaccination Rates Finds Major Global Declines in Recent Years
While vaccines for COVID-19 have certainly enjoyed the spotlight in recent years, rates of uptake for other shots have sharply declined. That’s the finding of a new analysis funded by GSK in collaboration with the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science and the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA).
All told, about 100 million fewer doses than anticipated of some adult vaccines, other than those targeting COVID-19, were administered between 2021 and 2022, the team found. To reach this number, the group weighed vaccine use in the last two years versus trends in global vaccine adoption from 2013 to 2020.
In fact, just 16.2 doses of some vaccines were doled out globally per 100 adults in 2022. Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccines saw overwhelming success with 132 doses delivered for every 100 adults in the same year, according to the report.
What to Know About Weight Loss Drugs for Teens
Childhood obesity rates continue to rise in the U.S., affecting nearly 1 in 5 kids and adolescents ages 2 to 19. To combat it, experts are calling for early and intensive treatment. For some children, that may include weight loss medications.
The American Academy of Pediatrics included anti-obesity drugs for the first time this year in its guidelines for treating childhood obesity. According to the guidelines, pediatricians should offer weight loss drugs to adolescents ages 12 and up with obesity, alongside diet and lifestyle changes that encourage healthy eating and exercise.
Four weight loss drugs are approved for use in adolescents as young as 12: Wegovy, Saxenda, orlistat and Qsymia. Wegovy and Saxenda are part of a newer class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists that have soared in popularity in the past year.
The recommendations were immediately met with controversy, especially from groups concerned about eating disorders, who worried that including weight loss drugs would ultimately be harmful to children.
Pharma Insider Speaks Out About Vaccine Batches
“The regulators knew perfectly well that they were saying things that weren’t true. That led me to start questioning the whole thing,” says Sasha Latypova. “If you catch an official or a professional lying about something to the public, what else are they lying about?”
In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek and Latypova, a former pharmaceutical executive, discuss COVID-19 vaccines, the enormous discrepancies in their manufacture, and the U.S. government’s militarization of public health during this crisis.
Latypova emerged from retirement during the COVID-19 pandemic to become a whistleblower after she observed the government and vaccine manufacturers veering away from established clinical research and public health protocols.
House Committee Moves to Reauthorize Landmark Opioid Treatment Bill
The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to reauthorize a major law providing treatment for opioid use disorder as the nation’s rate of fatal overdoses remains near record highs.
The Support for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act, sponsored by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the chair of the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, would renew programs that will otherwise run out of funding by the end of September, such as opioid recovery centers and training for providers who treat people with substance use disorder.
It also would allow the use of federal funding to pay for test strips that can detect drugs like fentanyl and the horse tranquilizer xylazine that dealers often mix with it to deadly effect.
WHO Says Contaminated Cough Syrup Sold in Cameroon
The World Health Organization on Wednesday said a batch of cough and cold syrup sold in Cameroon under the brand name Naturcold contained extremely high levels of a toxic ingredient, the latest in a series of recent warnings about contaminated cough syrups.
The packaging label on the syrup showed it was manufactured by a company called Fraken International (England), but the U.K. health regulator said no such company exists in the country, the WHO said.
“Enquiries are still underway to determine the origin of the product,” WHO said. A spokesperson told Reuters that the syrup may be on sale in other countries as well as Cameroon, which prompted its global alert calling for more surveillance.
In 2022, more than 300 children — mainly aged under five — in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died of acute kidney injury, in deaths associated with similar products made by other manufacturers. The WHO has said the threat is ongoing.
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