Frances Oldham Kelsey—an FDA scientist who successfully protected the innocent by fighting off industrial interests—has passed away at 101. A Washington Post obituary tells the story of her heroic efforts to prevent thalidomide from being sold to pregnant women in the US as a cure for morning sickness and insomnia. Her story reveals the importance of government regulation and oversight because without her, countless children would have died or been born with severe birth defects. One would hope the company responsible for the deformity-inducing "medicine" would be grateful for Kelsey's discovery, but instead Kelsey was subjected to the kind of abuse that sadly mirrors the current attacks leveled against climate scientists. As with the fossil fuel industry, the drug industry was only looking after its own interests.
We have Kelsey's tenacity and persistence to thank for having shaped some of the most important parts of our modern regulatory system, from the modern clinical trial system to institutional review boards. The importance of this can't be overstated, because as we know, industry is still driven by profits and can sometimes stoop to immoral depths to peddle their product.
For example, it was just revealed that Coca-Cola is sponsoring a new front group to shift public attention from cutting calories to getting more exercise, in an effort to blunt the many policies arising to limit consumption of sugar-loaded soft drinks. This means that Coke is now following in the footsteps of the tobacco companies who hired scientists to study non-tobacco-induced causes of cancer long after the connection was scientifically solid, and fossil fuel companies who hired scientists to search for and publicize non-CO2 causes of climate change long after the connection was beyond reasonable doubt.
With the continued persistence of these Merchants of Doubt, it seems like Kelsey’s work is not finished yet.
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