Wonder Drug

Longlisted for the Andrew 2024 Carnegie Medal for Non-Fiction

The shocking, never-before-told story of America’s thalidomide victims

In Germany on Christmas Day 1956, a baby girl was born without ears. She was the first victim of the notorious thalidomide epidemic. There would be over 10,000 more across 46 countries.

For years, the world believed the United States had avoided the catastrophe. After Frances Kelsey at the Food and Drug Administration became suspicious of the dangers of thalidomide in 1960, she led a successful fight to block its commercial approval.

But now, having probed government and corporate archives and interviewed hundreds of key players, Jennifer Vanderbes reveals a darker truth that lay buried for decades. The toxic sedative ostensibly ‘never sold’ in America was widely distributed for over five years under the guise of clinical trials, reaching hundreds of pregnant women. Scores of American babies were, in fact, born with birth defects likely caused by the drug.

Wonder Drug gives a voice to these hidden victims of the twentieth century’s biggest medical scandal, shedding light on the deceptive practices of Big Pharma that still endanger lives around the world today.