McBride, William (1927-2018), an Australian doctor, achieved world prominence in 1961 when he discovered that the drug thalidomide caused birth defects in unborn children.
William Griffith McBride was born on May 25, 1927, in Sydney and educated at Canterbury High School and the University of Sydney. He went on to establish a successful medical practice. In 1961, McBride published a letter in the British medical journal Lancet describing an increase in the number babies born with limb defects at his hospital. McBride observed that all the mothers had taken the drug thalidomide during pregnancy to treat morning sickness. He warned that the drug may be causing the birth defects. Within the year, thalidomide was taken off the market.
McBride received many awards in recognition of his discovery. In 1971, he established Foundation 41 to research the causes of birth defects. In 1981, he published a paper that linked another drug, marketed under the name Debendox or Bendectin, to physical malformations in babies. But an investigation of his research determined that McBride had committed scientific fraud. McBride denied any wrongdoing. However, he was removed from the Australian medical register in 1993 for falsifying research data. He was reinstated in 1998. McBride died on June 27, 2018.
See also Birth defect ; Thalidomide .
