BlindBoo
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Cough Syrup, Dead Children, and the Case for Regulation | Speakeasy Science
Cough Syrup. Anybody come up with this one yet?
Both little girls lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, both came down with nasty little colds in the fall of 1937, and both died because they were dosed with a brand new medication, a popular, raspberry-flavored cough syrup. In all, the syrup would kill 11 people in Oklahoma, within a few weeks. Ten in Alabama. Ten in Georgia. Twenty-three in Mississippi. Nine in South Carolina. Seven in Texas. More in California, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Louisiana, and more.
But at the time that Elixir Sulfanilamide came to be, produced by the S.E. Massengill Company of Bristol, Tennessee, that wasnt well understood. There was actually no legal requirement that companies understand their products, much less safety test them....
Cough Syrup. Anybody come up with this one yet?
Both little girls lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, both came down with nasty little colds in the fall of 1937, and both died because they were dosed with a brand new medication, a popular, raspberry-flavored cough syrup. In all, the syrup would kill 11 people in Oklahoma, within a few weeks. Ten in Alabama. Ten in Georgia. Twenty-three in Mississippi. Nine in South Carolina. Seven in Texas. More in California, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Louisiana, and more.
But at the time that Elixir Sulfanilamide came to be, produced by the S.E. Massengill Company of Bristol, Tennessee, that wasnt well understood. There was actually no legal requirement that companies understand their products, much less safety test them....