Forty years ago today, on April 22, 1971, a scientific study shocked the nation by showing that DES, a popular pregnancy drug, had killer side effects. Some say the drug and the aftermath helped launch the women's health movement. It changed the nature of the patient-gynecologist relationship forever, crystallizing and politicizing anger brewing among American women.
DES, short for diethylstilbestrol, is a synthetic estrogen that had been given to millions of American women from 1938 to 1971. It was touted to prevent miscarriages. The tragic irony is that not only was the drug ineffective, it was harmful. At its worst DES triggered a rare and deadly form of vaginal cancer in about one in every 1,000 women whose mothers took the drug. Thousands, perhaps millions, of DES daughters, are infertile. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and made headlines in every major national newspaper the next day.
And yet, the story isn't over. DES activists worry that the drug may have caused genetic abnormalities passed down for generations. For years, they have been worried that women who have been exposed to abnormally high levels of estrogen in utero may suffer from genetic defects that will be passed to their children. In other words, the legacy of DES (a drug popularized by hype and false hope) lives on. This month, French researchers published the results of a study including more than 500 DES-exposed families that suggests that DES may cause physical defects among boys born to DES exposed mothers. In other words, they found malformations among the grandsons of women who took the drug. The study, published in Fertility and Sterility, found a slightly higher risk of hypospadia (a urethra opening on the underside of the penis) among boys whose mothers had been exposed to DES.
The study is far from conclusive and really won't change anything for those who suffer, except perhaps what happens in the courts. The drug has not been given to pregnant women since 1971, but the recent findings are a reminder of this horrific chapter in the history of women's health. Women eagerly took the drug-high doses of estrogen-in the middle years of the 20th century because we had faith in our doctors, in medicine, and in America. We will never be that optimistic again nor have that much trust in our experts. In some ways, that's a shame. But blind faith never makes for healthy relationships. We may no longer be the obedient patients that our mothers were, but we perhaps we are creating a greater openness with our doctors and acquiring a deeper understanding of their health advice.
