An Unsung Heroine

As you may know, twice a week I lead morning meeting, one day in the middle school and the other in the upper school.  I look forward to doing this every week. Not only do I have the opportunity to facilitate announcements from faculty, staff, and students, but I also offer a lesson that I hope will introduce students to something new or different.  This past week was no exception.

I began by saying that I like to think I know a little about history, having studied it in college and graduate school; I consider myself relatively well-informed on certain topics like the 1960s, particularly since I lived during that decade.  However, I had never heard of a person named Frances Kelsey until I read her obituary this August.  Once I learned who she was, I found it difficult to believe that I didn’t know about her.  Consequently, I wanted to speak about her in morning meeting since we should all know her story.  


Frances Oldham Kelsey
1914-2015

Frances Oldham Kelsey was born in Canada in 1914, and graduated from high school at the age of 15.  She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Pharmacology from McGill University in Montreal. After graduate school, she wrote to the noted researcher Dr. EMK Geiling at the University of Chicago about a research position in their new pharmacology department. Geiling assumed from the letter that Kelsey was a man and offered her the job.  Kelsey went on to earn an MD from the University of Chicago and became a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, so she could practice medicine in both places.
 
In 1960, Kelsey was hired by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration. One of her first assignments was to review an application for a new drug, thalidomide, for use as a tranquilizer and painkiller.  Although thalidomide had been approved in Canada and more than 20 European and African countries, Kelsey argued to withhold approval until further studies could be completed. As you may recall, doctors also prescribed thalidomide to pregnant women as a remedy for nausea and morning sickness. Unfortunately, thousands of children in countries outside the U.S., whose mothers took thalidomide, suffered severe birth defects.  If you’re my age, you may recall the heartbreaking photographs in Life magazine from that time.  

Thanks to her dogged persistence against pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, countless American children were saved from the ravages of thalidomide-induced birth defects. Kelsey’s work led to Congress’ passage of the Kefauver Harris Amendment in October 1962 that called for extensive drug studies and stricter drug regulation.  Kelsey was the second woman in American history to receive the President’s Award for Distinguished Civilian Service from President John F. Kennedy.  Kelsey continued to work at the FDA until 2005 when she retired, after 45 years of service, at the age of 90. In 2010, Kelsey was the first recipient of the FDA’s Drug Safety Excellence Award, which has become an annual award named in her honor.  Just this year, she was named to the Order of Canada, the second highest merit honor awarded by Canada’s monarch.

Kelsey was a true heroine, and her story deserves to be more widely known.  Especially during a time when our country desperately needs more women to go into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, she can serve as an inspiration to all of us.

If you would like more information, I encourage you to watch this video produced by The New York Times, "The Shadow of the Thalidomide Tragedy."