DES and you
Dec. 22nd, 2003 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheWow. Sometimes you learn something when you surf the net.
DES has been called, "the worst disaster in U.S. medical history." Ten million Americans are exposed to DES, hundreds of thousands exposed in Europe, Australia, Canada.
DES was prescribed to millions of women in the mistaken belief it could prevent miscarriage. Anyone born or pregnant between 1938-1971 in the U.S. may be exposed to DES. In some European countries, DES was prescribed until the mid-80s.
DES became so popular as an anti-miscarriage drug, it was prescribed to women with healthy pregnancies to build strong, healthy babies. DES was shown to be completely ineffective in preventing miscarriage in the early 1950s, yet for decades DES continued to be marketed worldwide.
In the 1970s, DES was identified as a teratogen and cross-placental carcinogen when teenage daughters of mothers prescribed DES began developing a rare, sometimes fatal, vaginal cancer. Over time a range of serious injuries have been linked to DES exposure. DES is linked to increased cancers and reproductive injuries in adult daughters and sons exposed to DES in utero.
For decades DES was added to livestock feed to speed up the fattening of cattle, lamb, and chicken. The majority of hamburgers, veal, chicken, and steaks on dinner plates in the 1950s and '60s were likely from animals fattened on DES-laced feed. DES was banned in chickens in the 1960s, but not in humans. It has taken the USDA decades to get DES out of the food chain. As recently as 2000, a shipment of U.S. beef to Switzerland was confiscated after traces of DES were detected. DES has been part of our culture in one way or another, for decades.
DES exposure is central to the emerging science of endocrine disruption. DES is one of many environmental hormones, called endocrine disrupters. These chemicals can disrupt reproductive function in wildlife and humans. In addition to posing a personal health risk for millions of people, DES is the clearest example of second generation reproductive harm linked to chemical exposure. DES provides key scientific information across disciplines.
DES Stories: Faces and voices of people exposed to diethylstilbestrol
Here's a recent, more personal take from USA Today in April of this year.
DES has been called, "the worst disaster in U.S. medical history." Ten million Americans are exposed to DES, hundreds of thousands exposed in Europe, Australia, Canada.
DES was prescribed to millions of women in the mistaken belief it could prevent miscarriage. Anyone born or pregnant between 1938-1971 in the U.S. may be exposed to DES. In some European countries, DES was prescribed until the mid-80s.
DES became so popular as an anti-miscarriage drug, it was prescribed to women with healthy pregnancies to build strong, healthy babies. DES was shown to be completely ineffective in preventing miscarriage in the early 1950s, yet for decades DES continued to be marketed worldwide.
In the 1970s, DES was identified as a teratogen and cross-placental carcinogen when teenage daughters of mothers prescribed DES began developing a rare, sometimes fatal, vaginal cancer. Over time a range of serious injuries have been linked to DES exposure. DES is linked to increased cancers and reproductive injuries in adult daughters and sons exposed to DES in utero.
For decades DES was added to livestock feed to speed up the fattening of cattle, lamb, and chicken. The majority of hamburgers, veal, chicken, and steaks on dinner plates in the 1950s and '60s were likely from animals fattened on DES-laced feed. DES was banned in chickens in the 1960s, but not in humans. It has taken the USDA decades to get DES out of the food chain. As recently as 2000, a shipment of U.S. beef to Switzerland was confiscated after traces of DES were detected. DES has been part of our culture in one way or another, for decades.
DES exposure is central to the emerging science of endocrine disruption. DES is one of many environmental hormones, called endocrine disrupters. These chemicals can disrupt reproductive function in wildlife and humans. In addition to posing a personal health risk for millions of people, DES is the clearest example of second generation reproductive harm linked to chemical exposure. DES provides key scientific information across disciplines.
DES Stories: Faces and voices of people exposed to diethylstilbestrol
Here's a recent, more personal take from USA Today in April of this year.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 06:18 am (UTC)I was born in 1969, so there is a decent likelihood I was exposed to this or another female hormone while in the womb.
If so, I'm glad for the chance it gave me to live; however, it may be the cause for my sexuality and transgenderism. These have been fairly conclusively linked to high levels of female hormones at certain crucial stages of fetal development -- these hormones would have overpowered the androgens in my body and encouraged my brain to develop along the female pattern.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 06:25 am (UTC)The pharmaceutical industry, I'm sure, would like the average American to stay ignorant of this problem. It doesn't cast the industry in such a good light.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 08:05 am (UTC)especially when they're pregnant!
It's amazing that persons of the modern age are so trusting of big poison-producing companies who don't care about people at all (except insofar as they are needed to generate revenue).
bah, it's sad that so many people have carry that burden now.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 08:34 am (UTC)Well, this was originally marketed in the '30s. That was in the day when cigarettes were touted as healthy.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 08:48 am (UTC)Diet drugs, anti-depressants, vaccines, sleep-aids, etc., etc.
People today are even more dependant on the chemical lifestyle offered by big brother Pharma.
I'll be happy if I never take another prescription drug into my body ever again.
Nature provides everything a person needs to be healthy and happy.
We don't need television. We don't need Ambien. We don't need Prilosec or Luvox.
We need clean water, untampered-with food, and lifestyles that allow us to explore our humanity and grow accordingly. These things have been robbed from us by the organizational complex involving gov't, the weapons industry, and the pharmacological industry. They have given us an artificial existence with artificial food and water with hazmat-grade flouride in it. The stress of living in the machine, being dehumanized drives some poor souls into the arms of the drug pushers (psychiatrists) - many of these damaged souls stay dependant of these meds just to deal with the nightmarish non-existence of the doped-up post-industrial brainwashed socio-economic entity.
I think the problem lies in people, rather than the age - so many are willing to take somebody else's answer to a problem instead of fiding their own. Of course, there are those who take advantage of it (e.g. "we at Bayer know what's best for you"), and so the sheep get sheared.
I'm not cynical though. I know people can be better, if they learned how to see through the lies that they get sold every day.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 09:52 am (UTC)I don't have anything against medicine. I have a problem with how the medical industry has implanted itself into the fabric of American culture.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 11:44 am (UTC)I don't have anything against science and medicine: they save lives and increase the range of human activity. Vaccines are for the most part good, but there are a lot of things that the chem. companies put into them that really shouldn't be there, and some vaccines are proven to be linked to some severe problems in children (autism included, I believe).
Like atomic energy, the problem isn't with the technology, but with the people exploiting it. The war-mongers used a good science to kill millions. The pharmaCo. demons use their medicine to keep people on the hook, and to manipulate the populace to keep it in line with the status-quo (doping up a population keeps them docile).
Can you imagine the state of the American citizenry today if no one had come up with anti-depressants or anti-anxiety drugs?
American society would have had to change course years ago, or else self-destruct (the same choice it begins to face now).