Is It Time To Test Drugs On Pregnant Women?

Is it time to test drugs on pregnant women?

- Nina Liss-schultz

Pregnancy often comes with a lengthy list of physical discomforts, but Kate O’Brien’s were unusual: coughing, night sweats, extreme fatigue. After a series of misdiagnoses, a test finally came back positive. She had tuberculosis. O’Brien, who was 35 and living in New York City, was isolated in a hospital in midtown Manhattan, where she would stay for the next two-plus months.

But the worst was yet to come. The pregnancy quickly made her treatment difficult. Because pregnancy makes the liver more sensitive, she developed drug-induced hepatitis. Even more terrifying: Physicians had little idea how some of the treatments and tests might affect the baby, but O’Brien agreed to them anyway. “You have to know how terrible that felt— like I was signing my child’s health away.”