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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO
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1960
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1960s) Medicine & Health
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1960s Highlights
</history>
<link 07616>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Medicine & Health
</hdr>
<body>
<p> [Americans were astounded by medical breakthroughs and
confronted with the moral repercussions of scientific
advancements.]
</p>
<p>(February 23, 1962)
</p>
<p> Last fall, doctors in West Germany noticed a mysterious
epidemic. It consisted of assorted internal malformations in
newborn babies, plus an upsurge in one hitherto rare condition:
phocomelia or "sea limbs," so called because the hands and feet
are like flippers, attached close to the body with little or no
arm or leg. Hamburg University's Pediatrician Widukind Lenz, 43,
began to suspect Contergan because he found that in many cases
the mothers had taken it late in the second month of pregnancy,
when the fetus' limbs' are forming.
</p>
<p> As similar reports multiplied, Chemie Gruenenthal took
Contergan, and every compound drug containing thalidomide, off
the market.
</p>
<p>(September 7, 1962)
</p>
<p> The tragic extent of the thalidomide disaster was officially
confirmed last week in West Germany, where the malformation-
causing drug was first synthesized eight years ago. Since 1957,
when the sleeping-pill-tranquilizer was approved for over-the-
counter sale, announced the Public Health Ministry, it has caused
10,000 cases of birth malformations in West Germany alone. In the
U.S., only a handful of thalidomide-connected malformations have
been reported, but there are more than 50 deformed babies in
Canada, close to 1,000 in Britain, untold scores more across
Western Europe, in Japan and South America, where the drug was
sold under no fewer than 50 trade names.
</p>
<p>(December 15, 1967)
</p>
<p> For weeks, and months, and even years, surgical teams at more
than 20 medical centers around the world have been standing
ready to make the first transplant of a heart from one human
being to another. Last week, in two hospitals separated by
almost 8,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean, the historic juxtaposition
happened and the heart transplants were performed.
</p>
<p> In this, the team at Brooklyn's Maimonides Medical Center,
headed by Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, admitted "unequivocal failure."
Their patient, a 19-day-old boy, died 6 1/2 hours after he
received a new heart. But the team of Dr. Christiaan Neethling
Barnard, 44, which acted first at Cape Town, South Africa, had
a more enduring success. Their patient, a 55-year old man, was
feeding himself and making small talk a week after his epochal
surgery.
</p>
<p>(August 29, 1969)
</p>
<p> Dr. Christiaan Barnard's--and the world's--first patient to
receive a transplanted human heart, Louis Washkansky, lived for
only 18 days after his historic operation. But Barnard's second
transplant recipient, Dentist Philip Blaiberg, recovered fully,
wrote a book about his experiences and displayed such a zest for
life that he went swimming on the first anniversary of his
operation. Last week, after surviving for an incredible 594 days
with another man's heart in his chest--longer by far than any
other heart transplant patient--Blaiberg died peacefully in the
same Cape Town hospital at which he had received his new lease
on life.
</p>
<p>(January 17, 1964)
</p>
<p> The conclusion was just about what everybody had expected. "On
the basis of prolonged study and evaluation," the 150,000-word
report declared, "the committee makes the following judgment:
Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance
in the U.S. to warrant appropriate remedial action." More
significant than the words was their source: it was the unanimous
report of an impartial committee of top experts in several health
fields, backed by the full authority of the U.S. Government.
</p>
<p>(April 25, 1969)
</p>
<p> Should an industry be at liberty to promote a product that 70
million U.S. smokers want, even if it endangers life? What is
the responsibility of the cigarette makers to the public? And
what restrictive actions, if any, should the Government take
against them?
</p>
<p> Last week the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee
opened hearings aimed at providing some of the answers. Congress
will need the answers soon. The Federal Communications
Commission has voted 6 to 1 to ban cigarette advertising on
radio and television, which it regulates, but it needs
congressional approval to enforce such an act. The Federal Trade
Commission wants to strengthen the current ineffectual warning
on cigarette packs which now reads:
</p>
<qt>
<l>Caution: Cigarette Smoking May</l>
<l>Be Hazardous to Your Health.</l>
</qt>
</body>
</article>
</text>