The Elixir Tragedy

Problems didn’t arise until patients started taking Elixir Sulfanilamide.
Nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain appeared first, often followed by kidney failure, weakness, and coma for those who had consumed the mixture.
Frances Oldham Kelsey, a steadfast FDA scientist, identified diethylene glycol as the poisonous component of the mixture.
But under the regulations of the time, Massengill hadn’t really done anything wrong: analyses of the concoction taken by the Tulsa patients revealed the ingredients to be exactly what the company had said they were. (The company had only broken the law by calling the medicine an “elixir,” a designation that was reserved for drugs containing ethanol.)
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