Thalidomide Awareness 2009

UK Thalidomide Awareness, warning patients who are being prescribed the drug not to misuse it or past it onto others, thalidomideuk

50 years on, the drug thalidomide, which was approved a European license last year, as increased the chances of history of thalidomide being repeated. Thalidomide is widely used in the treatment of various blood cancers and in some cases arthritis. Sadly, this means that because the drug is being used more and more the possibility of babies being born with missing limbs in the UK is increasing unless the regulators are prepared to let Thalidomide UK help with the warnings.

The video starts with graphic clips of a pregnant woman and a fetus followed by a still born baby of thalidomide. The Thalidomide Awareness video covers the fight of thalidomide children as they grow up with severe disabilities. It will also send a clear message to the MHRA (The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) which is the UK government agency which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe and Celgene Europe the license holders of the drug thalidomide that if another baby is born with deformities then they will be held fully responsible. Mr Astbury (President of Thalidomide UK and Video producer) said its the 50th Anniversary of thalidomide this year so lets not see history be repeated. In our ideal world, thalidomide would be banned, but we have to accept that we live in the real world.

The UK and Europe's drug regulators recommended approved of thalidomide to treat bone marrow cancer, nearly 50 years after the medicine was withdrawn as a treatment for morning sickness around the world because it caused thousands of children to be born with birth defects.

The European medicines agency granted authorisation for the medicine to be used to treat multiple myeloma in combination with other drugs, on condition that it was strictly controlled to avoid it being taken by pregnant women.

The decision follows extensive consultation including with a number of European associations of thalidomiders, who ultimately endorsed the approval after agreeing to strict safeguards. Mr Glenn Harrison (Chairman of Thalidomide UK) said, we are prepared to work with the license holders of Thalidomide Celgene and the MHRA if it means that we can stop anymore babies being damaged. We believe that the best way forward is to work on Risk Management Programme like the European Pregnancy Prevention Programme and the STEPS Programme in the USA, with the manufactures and suppliers that would reduce the chances of more babies being damaged by the drug.

The awareness video over the next couple of weeks will be launched on additional website i.e. Google Video, Megavideo, Metacafe, MSN Video, Dailymotion, Flickr, Facebook (fan page), MYSpace, Yahoo! Video

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Thalidomide
• Awareness
• 2009
• health
• medical
• medicine
• history
• pregnancy
• prevention
• programme
• birth
• defect
• amputees