Thalidomide Remembered

Ever since thalidomide became a drug-industry scandal, medical researchers have made every effort to find ways and means of determining the effects of drugs on unborn children. But how to study a developing fetus in utero reacting to drugs passed through its mother's bloodstream? Last week such research was given a hopeful boost when the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development awarded a $48,500 contract to the Marquardt Corp., of Van Nuys, Calif., to probe the effects of drugs on embryonic opossums.

The opossum was chosen because it is a unique animal. Born only twelve days after conception, it spends the next 60 to 70 days in its mother's pouch, firmly and continuously attached to her breast. During that period, it grows and behaves much as a human embryo in normal gestation. Marquardt researchers are already well acquainted with the opossum, having learned how to detach the tiny fetus from the mother's breast to feed it artificially. Mixing drugs with the food, the researchers should be able to observe firsthand their effects on a growing fetus.

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