Former United States dollars Teacher Who Played Prominent Role At FDA Dies At 101

(VERMILLION, S.D. ABC9) Former University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine professor Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey passed away on at the age of 101.

Over the next four decades, Kelsey remained an instrumental figure in shaping and enforcing protocols for drug licencing. It all traced back to the use of thalidomide by the mothers, and Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey was hailed a hero for not only declaring the dangers of the drug, but for throwing her body and her will in front of its distribution in the United States, sparing thousands of children from its effects. For almost 19 months she painstakingly blocked the approval of the drug while being slandered as a bureaucratic mudslinger. She was particularly known for the tenacity she showcased for keeping thalidomide out of United States.

Kelsey was still working till she was 91.

Over the years, we have seen a number of lawsuits being filed against Thalidomide. “She may have had a bigger effect after thalidomide than before”.

Standing up to opposition was not new to Kelsey, however.

Interestingly, Kelsey may have never gotten to do her crucial work at the FDA if not for a mistake about her gender when she was a student at McGill University in Montreal.

Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey changed the world, and for the better. “When a woman took a job in those days, she was made to feel as if she was depriving a man of the ability to support his wife and child”, she later recalled, as quoted by the Post.

Her persistence kept the exposure of thalidomide to mothers and children in the U.S.to a minimum, but her influence extends beyond just one risky drug. The antibiotic sulfanilamide had proven strikingly effective against bacterial infections and safe in tablet and powder form. The ensuing catastrophe resulted in the passage of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which first brought drug safety under the federal government’s purview. Those who butter their daily bread with snide misogyny would do well to find a mirror, stare deeply into it, and realize they do not possess the mental or professional acumen to tie Dr. Kelsey’s shoes, much less insult her and the many millions of women who are smarter, sharper and more talented than they can ever hope to be.

Dr. Kelsey’s original work on the thalidomide application stands today as a legendary example of how FDA carries out its public health mission: judicious exercise of authority and oversight to protect consumers and patients. She joined FDA at a time of great national optimism about the powers of science, as symbolized by the glamour of the space program that President Kennedy espoused. In Fried’s opinion, Kelsey was “the most famous government regulator in American history”.