“Between 1958 and 1962, thousands of babies across the Western world were unaccountably born with a plethora of physical deformities, including short or absent limbs, ears and eyes, holes in the heart, blocked intestines, and/or absence or duplication of other internal organs.”
— Dr. Janet McCredie, “The Thalidomide Story,” the Sydney Publishing blog for the University of Sydney
Dr. McCredie is one of the world’s foremost research experts (and medical historians) on thalidomide — the drug that caused the infant deformities mentioned in the keystone quotation. In 2007, the Royal Society of Medicine published McCredie’s research in the form of a 418-page tome entitled Beyond Thalidomide, which details the history and effects of the drug. Full disclosure: I haven’t read the book.
I have, though, read a six-page overview of the thalidomide tragedy in History’s Worst Decisions, and I’ve also skimmed the Wikipedia entry on it, so I’m basically an expert. Well, not an expert, but more knowledgeable on the topic than about 99 percent of Americans. That’s a pretty low threshold — but we’re the ones to blame for that, amirite?
Anyway, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to read more, so I just read about a random drug made by a German company 60 years ago, and I thought. “This is totally applicable to daily fantasy sports.”
So this article is about thalidomide and DFS.
A Disclaimer
I want to make a couple of facts clear.
- I’m not a medical expert. At all. Not even a little bit. In this piece I mention some stuff that has to do with medicine, health, the uses of a particular drug, etc. Don’t read this piece and think to yourself, “Freedman just said that thalidomide get rids of cancer and leprosy — I need to get me some thalidomide.” Again, I’m not a medical expert. I’m really not even a DFS expert, but that’s a separate issue.
- Thalidomide caused defects in thousands of infants, many of whom are now adults who live in and contribute to the world. I want to be clear that I don’t intend to trivialize the thalidomide tragedy by contextualizing it within a conversation about DFS.
Ultimately, thalidomide negatively impacted a lot of people in the ’50s and ’60s because of faulty processes — illogical thoughts and acts. There are real effects in the world that accompany unreasoned undertakings. My belief is that by becoming better at thinking and acting we’ll become better at not only DFS but also living.
Also, it doesn’t hurt for people to know what the Food and Drug Administration actually does.
Grünenthal’s Drug
Grünenthal is a German pharmaceutical company. (Amazingly, it still exists). It was founded in 1946, when companies and factories that up to that point had been manufacturing chemicals and weapons for the Nazi cause in World War II quickly pivoted to unobjectionable products like soap detergents and antibiotics.
It’s pretty similar to transitioning from poker to DFS. (That’s a joke.) Also, what could go wrong when a factory that handles materials intended to kill people starts manufacturing pills intended to help people?
Here’s a passage about Grünenthal from History’s Worst Decisions (which might be one of the greatest mediocre books ever):
Then, in the early 1950s came a series of failures as a number of its drugs produced severe adverse reactions, including deaths. Though these were well reported and documented by several doctors, Chemie Grünenthal ignored the serious risks and moved into the profitable field of sedatives and hypnotics, which included thalidomide. It proved successful and popular, and was remarkably effective against morning sickness for pregnant women. By 1957 it was being aggressively marketed in 50 countries around the world. In Britain, in particular, the Distillers Company made a special point of its safety and utility for pregnant women.
Of course, all claims made about thalidomide’s safety for pregnant women were utter bullsh*t. Advertisements for thalidomide didn’t present facts and data. Rather, they just said that the drug was “outstandingly safe” (what does that even mean?) and that it “has been prescribed for nearly three years in this country” (as if that actually means anything).
Naturally, the tests that had been done on thalidomide up to that point were shoddy and insufficient, examining the effects of the drug on animals instead of humans and mothers instead of in utero offspring and overlooking potential negative results. When Grünenthal released thalidomide in 1957 it was basically an untested drug — at least according to the standards of (modern) science.
In the laboratory of life, however, doctors who prescribed the drug quickly noticed that it was linked to birth defects in the babies they delivered (per History’s Worst Decisions):
It is estimated that a minimum of 15,000 fetuses were affected in 46 countries, of which 12,000 were born with birth defects, and of those, one-third died in their first year.
On the positive side, Grünenthal has only marginally apologized for its actions and is still a family-owned business! It seems like a great family.
Thalidomide & the FDA
By 1960, thalidomide was sold in a number of countries all over the world (often without a prescription and in combination with other drugs) even though the company had already received many reports of problems. (Notably, it had been refused marketing licenses by France and the Soviet Union.)
Not content to mistreat only some of the world’s countries (he said sarcastically; please don’t sue me, Grünenthal), the German company applied to the FDA for a license to sell thalidomide in the United States. At the FDA, a relatively new employee named Frances Oldham Kelsey — who happened to be a researcher on toxicity in pregnancy — reviewed the studies for thalidomide and was unconvinced that it was safe. Amidst intense internal and external pressure to approve the drug, she refused.
By 1962, Grünenthal was awash in scandal because of third-party research showing the negative effects of thalidomide. The drug, was pulled from circulation, Kelsey was given the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by John F. Kennedy, and legislation tightening drug regulation was unanimously passed by Congress.
Kelsey continued to work at the FDA until she was 90 years old (seriously). In 2000, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2010, the FDA created an annual Drug Safety Excellence Award and named it after her. In 2015, as a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, she was named to the Order of Canada . . . when she was 101.
Basically, Grünenthal tried to throw a fastball by the wrong woman, and she spent the rest of her life crushing that pitch.
When she died on August 7, 2015, her final words were reportedly, “F*ck the West Germans.” Not really, but you can imagine.
Thalidomide & the Present Day
Today, when taken by people who aren’t pregnant, thalidomide is used to treat — I’m not even joking — leprosy and multiple myeloma. The FDA in 1998 and 2006 approved the drug for those indications. Ironically, Kelsey was still at the FDA when thalidomide was finally approved.
Thalidomide & DFS
Yeah, I guess I can apply some of this to DFS in some way.
If You Don’t Do Sufficient Research, You Die
There’s no getting around this point. You can’t fake the research. The FantasyLabs Tools exist to be used. If you subscribe to Labs but don’t do your own research with our Player Models and Trends tools, you’re taking unnecessary risk in your DFS contests. Backtesting — conducting your own experiments — before you enter contests is how you avoid DFS catastrophe.
Do What the Other Smart People Do
France didn’t approve thalidomide. The USSR didn’t approve thalidomide. On the basis of that alone, it would’ve been reasonable for the FDA to review the drug with extra care. And when the FDA rejected the drug every country in the world should’ve taken notice — but thalidomide was still sold across Africa, Europe, and even Canada for more than a year after Kelsey’s decision. In the 1960s, if France, USSR, and the United States were against something, the rest of the world probably should’ve been too.
Although it often pays to be a DFS contrarian, it always pays to pay attention to what the smart players are doing. That’s why Pro subscribers should review ownership trends in our DFS Ownership Dashboard. When the high-stakes players are doing something that the low-stakes players aren’t, you want to know. That information is valuable.
Also, that’s why people should follow the work of Labs Co-Founders Jonathan Bales and Peter Jennings (CSURAM88) and also Labs contributor Adam Levitan. Every week members of this triumvirate of virility review lineups and preview slate-specific models on our Premium Content Portal, which also houses all of our Inside the Labs episodes. If all our Pro subscribers did were watch all of the content on our premium portal, that would probably be enough to make them significantly better players.
You don’t have to be a great DFS player to be successful at it. You just need to be smart enough to pay attention to players who are better than you.
That Which Kills You Might Cure Someone Else
If Thalidomide weren’t currently used as a treatment for leprosy and cancer, I probably wouldn’t have spent about 1,750 words on it — although you never know: If writing about something irrelevant is wrong, I don’t want to be right. (Hi, Tom.)
Here’s what I love about drugs chemistry: Context matters. For pregnant people with morning sickness, thalidomide is horrible. For non-pregnant people with leprosy, thalidomide is wonderful. Almost any substance in the world (despite its toxicity) can have a beneficial use when applied in the correct proportions to the right medical issues.
In DFS, no strategy is inherently good or bad. There are just bad strategies for particular contest types and slates. Using our Lineup Builder to create a slew of rosters with 70 percent exposure to one player might be a horrible idea one day and a great idea the next day. You can’t afford to be dismissive of any given strategy. What was unthinkable four years ago might be optimal now because of changes in the DFS marketplace.
The assassin and contrarian both always carry a vile of poison. The one uses it for murder; the other, medication.
A Little Under 40 Percent?
If I tell my wife there’s a National Women’s Hall of Fame, what are the odds I end up visiting Seneca Falls within five years?
The Labyrinthian: 2017.35, 130
This is the 130th installment of The Labyrinthian, a series dedicated to exploring random fields of knowledge in order to give you unordinary theoretical, philosophical, strategic, and/or often rambling guidance on daily fantasy sports. Consult the introductory piece to the series for further explanation. Previous installments can be accessed via my author page or the series archive.
