The full story of thalidomide was told by the Sunday Times in “Suffer The Children” (Kingsley et al., Suffer the children: the story of thalidomide, the insight team of the Sunday times (UK), 1979).Many preventative measures have been taken in the intervening years in light of the lessons learned with thalidomide.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23138926/