In time, thousands of children around the world whose mothers took the drug while pregnant were born with severe physical disabilities, including flipper-like arms and legs. The archival footage of these children in the Retro video is both horrifying and heartbreaking, as are the stories of the many families who were devastated and unable to cope.

Thalidomide-affected children were in some instances rejected by their parents and institutionalized. Others had their flippers amputated to accommodate prostheses for arms and legs. In one extreme case, a young mother and her doctor were charged with the mercy killing of her deformed infant.

But in the United States things were different, thanks to one of those little known heroes who simply did her job well, and in the process, prevented the drug from being approved.

In September 1960, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a young pharmacologist who had just started working at the Food and Drug Administration, was asked to review the drug for approval but became alarmed by what she saw as the lack of rigorous scientific research supporting the drug’s safety done by Grünenthal and William S. Merrell, the United States distributor.

Once she examined the research carefully, the case for thalidomide quickly unraveled. She kept asking the company for more data, delaying approval. In late November 1961, long-ignored evidence became public in Germany linking thalidomide to birth defects. Grünenthal, which in a court case years later blamed causes like nuclear fallout or botched home abortions for the children’s deformities, did not apologize to the victims and their families until last year.