Alice Domurat Dreger, PhD
Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities & Bioethics
Feinberg School of Medicine

What Would It Take for Doctors to Stop Messing with Pregnant Women, and Start Experimenting on Them?

It is difficult, as an historian of medicine, to know the horrific history of the use of DES and thalidomide on pregnant women and to watch doctors today willy-nilly dosing pregnant women off-label with drugs of which they really ought to be quite terrified. In this talk, I'll talk about what we don't seem to have learned from DES and thalidomide, talk about why we can't seem to learn it, talk about the use of dexamethasone for miscarriage prevention at IVF clinics, and propose that we start openly, carefully, and honestly experimenting with drugs on pregnant women.

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The Medical Humanities & Bioethics Lectures run weekly on Thursdays at noon, addressing diverse topics within bioethics and the medical humanities. Speakers are MH&B faculty or special guests we've invited to present. All lectures run from noon to 12:45pm in the Searle Seminar Room in the Lurie building. All are welcome. Please feel free to bring a lunch.