New Zealand health officials are digging back into their records to check whether a pregnancy test which may have caused birth defects in Britain was ever prescribed here. It was used 30 to 40 years ago, and thousands of British children may have been affected. Medsafe, which is responsible for the regulation of medicines in New Zealand, could not immediately say whether the drug was prescribed in this country. "Medsafe understands that this product was used in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s before being withdrawn," a Ministry of Health spokeswoman said. It also rejects any links between the drug and birth defects.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 19, 2017 06:28 UTC