[dhmholley]

And unfortunately it often is used that way, by people who don't understand that animal testing would have caught the birth defects had it been tested on pregnant animals (advocating, if anything, for more thorough animal testing, not for animal testing's ineffectiveness). Of course people aren't interested in this, they're just after the conclusion that supports their preconceived ideas.

[Luc]

It was tested extensively on animals before release, and even after it was suspected of causing deformities, tests on pregnant dogs, cats, monkeys, hamsters and chickens were done and failed to produce deformities.

Eventually they showed up in a particular strain of rabbits.

But hey, that was long ago.

[dhmholley]

If you have some citations for that I'd be interested in reading them, because I've never heard that before.

[Luc]

I have only scanned it, but probably in here: http://jpsl.org/archives/history-and-implications-testing-th...

"Lasagna [157] commented that once a chemical is known to cause birth defects in humans, an animal species or strain can usually be found that will replicate the response, but that this is not the same as prospectively predicting this response."

[pvaldes]

> tests were done and failed to produce deformities.

Lucey and Behrman. 1963. Thalidomide: effect upon pregnancy in the rhesus monkey. Science 139:1295-1296.

Hendrickx, Axelrod and Clayborn. 1966. 'Thalidomide' syndrome in baboons. Nature 210 (5039):958-959.

"Delahunt and Lassen induced typically malformed foetuses in four of seven pregnant Cynomolgus monkeys which were treated after implantation had already occurred"

Hendrickx, A. G., and L. Newman. 1973. Appendicular skeletal and visceral malformations induced by thalidomide in bonnet monkeys. Teratology 7 (2):151-159. doi:10.1002/tera.1420070206.

Please note the year of the articles. The studies with monkeys were made after the drug was distributed in many countries and thousands of babies without legs and arms started to born, not before.

[Luc]

Yes, people kept on doing animal test after the deformities were confirmed on rabbits. That just makes it more fucked up, not less.

[pvaldes]

You are not understanding the situation.

Let suposse that a mass murder kills 5000 babies, and mutilates other 5000. There will be a trial, right?, this is serious stuff. A complex trial with thousands of victims waiting for justice.

Will the lawyer of the victims, jump in this legal battlefield like going for a picnic, and show triumphant their one and only proof?("rabbits, didn't feel the need to investigate further because science is evil").

Will someone tell the police, "stop doing interviews, replicating the crime scene, looking for witness, asking the experts, we have one hint!. Dismiss the other proofs"?

Do you understand know, why a lot of work and experiments have to be done? Because there was dozens of trials in 46 countries and you need to know the truth without the slightest shadow of a doubt.