Week 1 Post 2

The history of medicine before the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was full of new breakthroughs but also a lot of untested drugs. The history of drugs begins with ancient China 5,000 years ago, when people made a tea with a specific type of shrub that was later found to contain Ephedrine. Ephedrine is a anti cough medicine that is still used today. Its diastereomer Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) is over-the-counter, however, because it can be used to make methamphetamines one must show a license. All of the drugs that have been mentioned are a part of the same class of drugs, or have the same pharmacophore. They are all Phenethylamines, which means they all have the sane basic structure as each other therefore all have similar effects, just at different effectiveness.

The creation of the FDA was a response to the Elixer Sulfanilamide tragedy. In 1937 a company was trying to market a drug to kids by making the liquid it was mixed into sweet. This comapany decided to use a chemical called diethylene glycol which was sweet, thick enough to be put on a spoon to feed a child with, and was able to dissolve the active ingredient. this was not tested because before it was released because it was not required. Unfortunately, diethylene glycol is incredibly toxic, and upon release killed over 100 children. this shows how important it is to have such thoughrouh testing when coming up with new drugs.

Comments

  1. Ms. DunleySeptember 12, 2017 at 5:52 AM

    What was the purpose of the drug that they added the sweeter?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 17, 2017 at 11:54 AM

      The drug was used to treat streptococcal infections. Today they use Diethylene Glycol (the sweetener) for the manufacturing of plastics.

      Delete

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