1960s Timeline

Oct. 10, 1962 - President Kennedy signed a new drug bill today that he said would help provide safe and more effective drugs to the...

Sept. 13, 1962 - The Food and Drug Administration said today it had reports that at least 10 deformed babies had been born in this...

Aug. 29, 1962 - The West German Federal Health Ministry announced today that the sleep-inducing drug Thalidomide had caused about 10,000...

Aug. 17, 1962 - Mrs. Sherri Finkbine of Phoenix, Ariz., won permission today in Stockholm, Sweden, for a legal abortion. The three-member...

Aug. 7, 1962 - At a White House ceremony today, NASA Administrator James Webb introduced Dr. Frances O. Kelsey to President Kennedy...

Aug. 7, 1962 - Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, who blocked marketing of the drug Thalidomide in the United States, pronounced herself...

Aug. 4, 1962 - Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey (pictured before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday) was authorized today to receive the highest...

Aug. 1, 1962 - There is no established procedure for persons who find the drug Thalidomide in their medicine cabinets to “turn it in.”...

Aug. 1, 1962 - Stronger laws to protect consumers from potentially harmful drugs such as thalidomide were proposed by President Kennedy...

July 31, 1962 - Mrs. Sherri Finkbine (pictured), host of the Arizona edition of the nationally syndicated television show “Romper Room,”...

July 30, 1962 - A total of 1,229 physicians in 39 states and the District of Columbia and 1 in Canada received test samples of...

July 27, 1962 - The Government doctor who prevented the drug Thalidomide from being sold commercially in the U.S. said today that several...

July 24, 1962 - Controversy raged in Phoenix today over a proposed abortion for Sherri Finkbine (pictured), a young Phoenix mother and...

July 15, 1962 - A woman doctor was reported today to have prevented the birth of perhaps thousands of deformed babies in this country....

Apr. 11, 1962 - The birth of thousands of deformed babies in Europe has led an American physician to appeal for stricter Federal...