Salute to Canadian Heroines, Part 4: Frances Oldham Kelsey

Like me, you’ve probably heard about “Thalidomide Babies.” Like me, you may not have known that almost none of these children were born in the United States. Why? Because the United States never approved thalidomide as a treatment for morning sickness during pregnancy. They have a Canadian woman to thank for that, although it may not have happened had her parents named her Katherine or Susan. Let me explain.

Having known from childhood that she wanted to be a scientist, Frances Oldham attended St. Margaret’s School and Victoria College before obtaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees from McGill University in the 1930s. After grad, the brilliant woman applied for a fellowship under a renowned pharmacology researcher at the University of Chicago. Thrilled to be accepted, she couldn’t help noticing that the researcher had addressed his acceptance letter to “Mr. Oldham.”

Her professor encouraged her to accept the position despite the misunderstanding. Frances signed the offer, adding “Miss” in parenthesis before her name.

The appalled researcher honored his offer, despite his chagrin at not recognizing the feminine spelling of Frances. In Frances’s words, “When a woman took a job in those days, she was made to feel as if she was depriving a man of the ability to support his wife and child.”

Frances Oldham Kelsey

Frances’s contribution to synthetic cures for malaria proved her entitlement to the posting. In 1938 she graduated from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in pharmacology. She later married, took her husband’s last name (Kelsey), birthed two daughters, and earned her medical degree. By 1960, the family had moved to Washington, DC where Frances worked for the Food and Drug Administration.

By then, a sleeping pill called Kevadon, manufactured by William S. Merrell Company and now known as thalidomide, was being prescribed around the world to pregnant women to combat morning sickness. Having seen the effects of malaria pills on unborn children, Frances refused to approve the drug for pregnant women until more studies were completed. Pressure from the drug company intensified, but Frances stood her ground. A two-year battle ensued, during which time stories emerged out of the UK and Germany. Women who’d taken the drug were giving birth to babies with missing limbs. In Frances’s homeland of Canada, 115 infants were born before the abnormalities were officially linked to the drug.

By the time the FDA banned thalidomide in the United States, approximately 100,000 babies with malformations had been born in forty-six countries.

On July 15, 1962, the front-page story in The Washington Post caught attention with the headline, “Heroine of FDS Keeps Bad Drug Off the Market.” Dr. Kelsey was thrust into the limelight. She received the highest honor available to a civilian, the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Services, from the hand of John F. Kennedy.

Frances continued her work with the FDA until the age of ninety. (In subsequent decades, thalidomide proved useful in the treatment of leprosy, AIDS, and certain cancers. The drug has benefited millions of patients around the world.)

The “Kelsey Award” is bestowed on those deserving of recognition in the field. You can find her name in the US National Women’s Hall of Fame, and at the Frances Kelsey Secondary School in her hometown of Cobble Hill, BC. In June 2015, she received the Order of Canada. At that event, Mercédes Benegbi, then head of the Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada, praised Kelsey for refusing to bend to pressure from drug companies. “To us,” she said, “she was always our heroine, even if what she did was in another country.”

Frances Kelsey died in 2015 at the age of 101.