Thalidomide: Prescribed as a remedy for nausea during pregnancy in the 1950s, Thalidomide was later discovered to cause irreversible damages to the fetus, and thousands of children were born with severe malformations, and many died. While tragic, Grünenthal, the company that produced it, had no reliable evidence to prove it was safe for use. Furthermore, they ignored the floods of complaints it received from doctors warning them of dangerous side effects their patients were experiencing. The company was later charged criminally for negligent homicide and injury.
Diethylstilbestrol (DES): Doctors prescribed this drug to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages and other complications for three decades. Research revealed the drug had no impact, yet doctors continued to prescribe it until the FDA issued a Drug Bulletin warning in 1971, showing that the drug was connected to a rare form of vaginal cancer in girls and women that were exposed to the drug during gestation.
Bextra: A Pfizer drug, Bextra was marketed as an anti-inflammatory medication, and physicians also prescribed it to patients with arthritis. It was used until 2005 when the FDA found that the drug caused heart and stomach problems and was the root of severe skin conditions like Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which causes blistering of the skin and internal organs.
Vioxx: 20 million people were using this drug for anti-inflammatory medication to treat arthritis before researchers discovered it increased the chances of heart attack and stroke. Merck, the creators of the drug, settled for $4.8 billion.
Fen-Phen: Known as a miracle weight loss drug, the medication had been around since the '70s and achieved moderate success until advertising campaigns catapulted it onto the world stage in the '90s. The FDA pulled the drug when researchers linked it to pulmonary hypertension. An estimated 6.5 million people used the drug over three decades.