thalidomide

Woden

Hi i missed a documentary type thing tonight on thaliodmide, in class thalidomide has always been given as the typical example of the importance of testing all enantiomeric forms of drugs seperately, it has also been mentioned that recently it came to light that it has other biological properties and what not which and sure enough men could take it as a drug. however my aunt said that women were or could also take it. does anyone see the documentary and what they said about it? can women take it only if they aren't pregnant or aren't planning on getting pregnant? or is it a derivative of thaliomide that doesnt have the adverse biological effect?

cheers

data

Capt'n Midnight

Not sure if same one but I saw a douc years ago and it said that a drug company was testing a product - which they did not go ahead with. So this guy in a bit of industrial espionage got the low down on it and tried to sell it on. Another company did not buy the infor and missed some data the first company had found in it's tests otherwise they too might have given up instead they marketed thalidomide.

But it indicates one of the problems of big pharma Vs. stated funded research, bad results get hidden and mistakes aren't learned from

Safety Data
http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/TH/thalidomide.html

FDA Data
http://www.fda.gov/cder/news/thalinfo/

Giving Thalidomide a Second Chance - (overview)
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1997/697_thal.html

Male patients must be willing to abstain from sexual intercourse or use a condom during intercourse while they are taking thalidomide and for at least one month after the last dose, because it is not known if the drug is present in semen.

Woden

i'll check those out thanks for the info