Isabel Gal (1925 - 2017), was a Jewish Hungarian paediatrician who was responsible for highlighting the link between use of the hormonal pregnancy test Primodos and severe birth defects.
[1] Later in 1956, with the Hungarian Revolution underway, the family left Hungary together with Isabel's mother Irma, and fled through Austria to England where Erica had settled after the war.
In 1967, while working at Queen Mary's Hospital for Children, Gal published an article in the journal Nature, highlighting a potential link between the hormone-based pregnancy test Primodos, manufactured by German drug company Schering AG, and congenital birth malformations.
[5][6] It was not until 1975, when further evidence emerged supporting her findings, that the Committee on Safety of Medicines issued a warning about use of the drug,[3] and it was 1978 before Schering withdrew the Primodos, by which time it had already been banned in several other countries.
[2][3] An Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, led by Baroness Cumberlege, published in 2020, vindicated Gal's original research, finding that "avoidable harm" resulted from the use of Primodos, and concluding that the drug should have been withdrawn from use in 1967.