[jdavis703]

If I’m reading this correctly, Thalidomide caused damage to fetal tissue, but didn’t actually kill the parent? This is still an awful burden for the parent, but there’s lots of drugs that are known to cause tissue damage during pregnancy. I believe this is why pregnant people are often excluded from clinical trials.

[tharkun__]

Yes, it didn't kill the parent. You might have missed the part where it killed 40% of the children at or shortly after birth.

And yes, that's (one reason) why the recommendations for the Covid vaccine were not given for pregnant women at first.

The point wasn't that there are drugs known to be dangerous to pregnant women (mainly the unborn child). The ask was for an approved drug that caused delayed death.

There were definitely so many things going wrong w/ that specific drug but it serves as a really good example for why all these precautions are taken and should be taken and any new drug should not be presumed safe but presumed dangerous and proven to not be harmful. The specific time frames and measures can of course be debated to find a good spot on the spectrum and an active pandemic can influence the choices. The discussion was going in the direction of some posters saying we should assume safe first and the Contergan case very clearly shows why assuming safety is the wrong choice.

[wussboy]

I think the ask was actually for an approved drug, taken briefly, that caused a delayed death in the person who was taking it. If we’re going to count prenatal effects, we can come up with thousands of examples. This is why pregnant women are always studied separately.

[tharkun__]

Let's take that apart:

    Are there any authorized or approved drugs that are taken over a short-term (say less than a month) that have been shown to cause long-term death?


    authorized or approved.

Check. Contergan was approved and used in 46 countries. Notably in East Germany there are no known cases of this, because "thalidomide was rejected by the Central Committee of Experts for the Drug Traffic in the GDR, and was never approved for use."

    taken over a short-term (say less than a month)

Check. As quoted before, taking Contergan past day 42 didn't harm the fetus and deformities seem to have started on day 21. Less than a month.

    cause long-term death

Check. Over the long term (>6 months) it caused death in 40% of the babies born.

Nowhere in there does it say to exclude any drugs than only cause direct death to the taker. Nor do I think should that matter. I do agree that pregnant women are studied separately precisely because the risks there are higher. To quote from the wikipedia article again:

    The Society of Toxicology of Canada was formed after the effects of thalidomide were made public, focusing on toxicology as a discipline separate from pharmacology. The need for the testing and approval of the toxins in certain pharmaceutical drugs became more important after the disaster.

[wussboy]

Sure. But that’s not what they meant. Can you name any drug that, when taken over a short course, has had long term detrimental effects to the person taking it?

[tharkun__]

It's debatable what someone meant or didn't mean, if they don't say it. I tend to go by what someone actually said. Especially on the internet (or writing in general) i.e. people you don't know, whose background you don't know, without intonation etc. There's very little to no information for interpretation.

Now you asked a new question. Fair enough. Unlike the previous question, where Contergan immediately jumped to my mind, for your question nothing jumps to mind. But google helped. I think you wanted to ask a different question, more like what I originally answered to, e.g.:

    Can you name any approved drug that, that when taken over a short course, can over the long term cause the death of the person taking it?

You did ask though:

    Can you name any drug that, when taken over a short course, has had long term detrimental effects to the person taking it?

Yes I can, for example: Heroin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

Let's take that apart:

    name any drug

Check. Heroin is a drug. It's even been prescribed as a pain killing opioid.

        The UK Department of Health's Rolleston Committee Report in 1926 established the British approach to diamorphine prescription to users, which was maintained for the next 40 years: dealers were prosecuted, but doctors could prescribe diamorphine to users when withdrawing. In 1964, the Brain Committee recommended that only selected approved doctors working at approved specialized centres be allowed to prescribe diamorphine and cocaine to users. The law was made more restrictive in 1968. Beginning in the 1970s, the emphasis shifted to abstinence and the use of methadone; currently, only a small number of users in the UK are prescribed diamorphine.

    taken over a short term

Check. Heroin is apparently way up there in addictiveness. After a very short period of time, you will be addicted (even if not like some people claim, after the very first use and regardless of dose or your own addiction susceptibility.

    However, contrary to Bayer's advertising as a "non-addictive morphine substitute," heroin would soon have one of the highest rates of addiction among its users.

Also https://web.archive.org/web/20100213101818/http://www.drugre... which curiously notes that nicotine is even more addictive than heroin. I'll not mention nicotine further here though, because the detrimental effect come from the other substances usually taken with it when ingested via tobacco as far as I am aware (tar).

    long term detrimental effects to the person taking it

Check. Detrimental effects of heroin are numerous. And given it's addictive very fast, even side effects that only turn up later, I would definitely include.

    Common side effects include respiratory depression (decreased breathing), dry mouth, drowsiness, impaired mental function, constipation, and addiction.[12] Side effects of use by injection can include abscesses, infected heart valves, blood-borne infections, and pneumonia.[12] After a history of long-term use, opioid withdrawal symptoms can begin within hours of the last use.

Not to mention the constant possibility of overdosing. Meaning death. The ultimate detrimental effect.

[wussboy]

I commend your ability to think outside the box, bringing up pregnancy and addiction as answers to the asked question.

So I’ll ask a third time, hoping that perhaps finally I can get you to the original asker’s intention:

Can you name any drug that when taken for only a short period of time, like this Covid drug surely would be, and is non addictive like this Covid drug surely is not, is harmful in the long term to the person who took it (assuming they are not pregnant as all of the people who would be allowed to take it would not be)?