Last week, only a few months after thalidomide was denounced as the cause of the worst medical disaster in history, the drug was being hailed in Israel as a possible treatment for cancer.
The Israeli case history began in 1955, when widowed Bluma Bursi, now 78, developed a swelling on her hip that grew as big as a grapefruit. Laboratory pathologists in Tel Aviv examined the lump after it was removed and declared the growth malignant—a fat-cell cancer. After an apparent recurrence, Bluma Bursi's leg was amputated in 1960. Late last year, she developed...
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