In 1960 Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey was the F.D.A. bureaucrat who in charge of licensing new drugs. She was asked to approve Kevadon, a sedative, already widely used in Europe. The drug was sold to pregnant women for morning sickness. The William S. Merrell Company of Cincinnati was the manufacturer and was quite annoyed at Dr. Kelsey’s request for more information. They called her a “petty bureaucrat.”
The drug, more commonly known as thalidomide, caused thousands of babies in Europe, Britain, and Canada, to be be born with flippers instead of limbs.
Thanks to petty bureaucrat Dr. Kelsey, this did not happen in the U.S.
In 1962 President Kennedy awarded Dr. Kelsey the nation’s highest federal civilian service award. He said she had “prevented a major tragedy of birth deformities.”
The word “bureaucrat” is usually used as a pejorative. I don’t see it that way.
(The information on Dr. Kelsey came from an obituary in today’s New York Times.)
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