Rex Features via AP Images Frances O. Kelsey during Senate testimony about corporate pressure to approve the drug in spite of her concerns about the drugs safety, August 1, 1962. I n our current culture, the phrase “government bureaucrat” is often used as an epithet, but Frances Kelsey—who died on August 7 at age 101—was a career government bureaucrat who was also a genuine American heroine. In the early 1960s, Kelsey, a doctor and research scientist with the federal Food and Drug Administration, almost singlehandedly took on the pharmaceutical industry. She stood up to the manufacturer of a dangerous medicine—thalidomide—and saved tens of thousands of babies from birth deformities. If you are in your 40s or 50s, Kelsey, working quietly in her FDA office, may have saved your life, by making sure that your doctor didn't prescribe thalidomide to your mother. Kelsey's battle with the makers of thalidomide is an inspiring tale of how one individual's expertise and courage protected the...