Does thalidomide cause second generation birth defects?
Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Leeds, England. The proposed association between thalidomide and second generation birth defects is an improbable hypotheses which lacks, so far, any credible scientific foundation. However, the media have chosen to give it extensive coverage. So much so that even the hard-headed scientist may start wondering if there is anything in it. However, there is no reason to suppose that people with birth defects caused by exposure to thalidomide during embryonic life have any greater or lesser chance of producing children with birth defects. This appears to be the case in practice. The question could be reworded to, ‘Can thalidomide be responsible for identical, or similar, birth defects in 2 generations of the same family?’ For such a phenomenon to be possible, a mechanism must be proposed and there appear to be only 2 possible candidates. The first is that the defects in the parent, originating during embryonic life, have somehow bee
