A bit about DES/ historical perspective

[boardwalk_angel]

It was first prescribed by physicians to prevent miscarriages (in women who had had previous miscarriages) in the 1940s as an off-label use. On July 1, 1947, the FDA approved the first supplemental new drug application (by Squibb) adding prevention of miscarriage as an indication and approved 25 mg (and later 100 mg) tablets of DES for this indication, and approved applications of several other pharmaceutical companies in the second half of 1947. The recommended regimen started at 5 mg per day in the 7th and 8th week of pregnancy (from first day of last menstrual period), increasing every other week by 5 mg per day through the 14th week, then increasing every week by 5 mg per day from 25 mg per day in the 15th week to 125 mg per day in the 35th week of pregnancy. DES was originally considered effective and safe for both the pregnant woman and the developing baby. A double-blind study of pregnant women (unselected for history of miscarriage) was not published until six years after DES received FDA approval for prevention of miscarriage. Even though it found that pregnant women given DES had just as many miscarriages and premature deliveries as the control group, DES continued to be aggressively marketed and routinely prescribed (though in decreasing frequency—sales peaked in 1953 and by the late 1960s six of seven leading textbooks of obstetrics said DES was ineffective at preventing miscarriage).

[Laura Robison]

So women took DES every day, in increasing dosages, from the 7th week through the 35th week of pregnancy. That's a lot of pills! No wonder the drug companies wanted to sell it. And it did no good at all, only harm.

DES is a powerful estrogen that affects the estrogen receptors, and primes the fetus to be extremely sensitive to any form of estrogen for life. It is also a powerful testosterone blocker, which has been shown to pass through the placenta and the blood/brain barrier. There's no wonder that it has caused so many problems.

Do you have any more information on the physical effects of DES on the fetus?

Hugs,
Laura

[steve/lisa]

Yes DES was and is a very strong estrogen,and I always felt it crossed over threw the barrier,but it also killed most of the male fetuses,thats why there are more females born than males,years ago,I was seen by a DR lu at uc Davis in Davis calif,he did a lot of the early studies on it and found out and publist many papers on the effects on female cancers,he found out threw this that it was'nt quit cancer and he called it DES cancer effect and that it was just a little different than normal cancer,anyway he did a few studies on me after my 2ed cancer and found out amazing things about the effects on herms.

Anyway I have alot of papers on him and his studies among other one's to,and as soon as I get a house and get everything out of storage I'll beable to post some of them on here or on my blog,but everyone should relize that south america still uses it in large doses on there livestock to fatten them up quickly,and it does carry over to who ever eats the meat,just look at all the kids in 3ed world countries that go into puberty at 8 years old, that comes from DES use in there livestock.

The US goverment stopped the use of it as late as the 90's in this country for livestock weight gain,so there still using it all over the world and contaminating alot of meat products with it.

My mother used it befor and during her preg with me as high as 125mg all the way threw till the day i was delivered,and it may well have caused some of my problems i had and continue to have,but theirs nothing that can be done for that now,they continue to use it as it is a great profit maker,at everyone's expense,and they just don't care who and what it does to the people as it seems the only sucko thing they care about is profit,and greed..

[Laura Robison]

I had no idea that it actually killed male fetuses. My mother had a birth defect that put her at risk of miscarriage, so she took it when she was pregnant with me. I have never had any genetic testing done, so I don't know if I have any other intersex condition besides what the DES did to me. That is why I'm so interested in the physical effects of DES on male fetuses, like the presence of a vagina, uterus, etc.

Hugs,
Laura

[The Female Eunuch]

The US goverment stopped the use of it as late as the 90's in this country for livestock weight gain,so there still using it all over the world and contaminating alot of meat products with it.

'all over the world' has got to be an exaggeration. Every OECD country other than the US prohibits the use of hormones like this on livestock for meat or milk.

Latin America, and to a lesser extent the US, are known for allowing dodgy practices like this because of the iunfluence of big businesses on government.

cheers,
Caroline

[boardwalk_angel]

That is why I'm so interested in the physical effects of DES on male fetuses, like the presence of a vagina, uterus, etc.

Hugs,
Laura


There have been cases of DES sons, who, usually during SRS, or CGS (corrective genital surgery), have been discovered to have a partial uterus...or similar anomalies.

[Laura Robison]

There have been cases of DES sons, who, usually during SRS, or CGS (corrective genital surgery), have been discovered to have a partial uterus...or similar anomalies.

Which matches perfectly with what my SRS surgeon found in me.

Hugs,
Laura

[Mikan]

DES really seemes to be similar to the Hormonal Pregnancy Tests (HPT) that were used in Europe until the early 1980s. Some of these are still in use but for other purposes, like for endometriosis, or as an illegal abortive in developing countries. A stronger dosage of the same medication is used for cattle as well.
I had the suspicion that the hormones passed from cattle to human- even though they say it isn't possible.

Laura- about the receptors becoming hyper sensitive to estrogens (or hormones in general), would that be the case with a female child too? I have been exposed to hormones in utero and I have some weird stuff going on with my hormones, and with artificial hormones. Where did you find that information?

Is there anyone who is doing research on this?

I've been told that large amounts of estrogen get metabolized into testosterone in the body, and that this is the reason why some artificial estrogens caused masculinisation of female fetuses? Is that true?

[fraulein_Maria]

[QUOTE=Mikan;22965]DES really seemes to be similar to the Hormonal Pregnancy Tests (HPT) that were used in Europe until the early 1980s.

>>> [quote=Mikan;22966]I have reposted the information because the old thread expired.

>>> and i'm still trying to understand how pills could be passed off as a hormone pregnancy test, when this is patently false.

all post 1950 pregnancy tests either required a woman to give a sample of her urine... which was then tested for HCG... a hormone her body produces without any help from pills, or her blood if there was any doubt.

please stop posting this SPAM

[fraulein_Maria]

[QUOTE=boardwalk_angel;20336]It was first prescribed by physicians to prevent miscarriages (in women who had had previous miscarriages) in the 1940s as an off-label use.


>>> that means there might be ALOT of CAH gals and CAH boys out there with DES problems. female carriers of CAH (and there CAH daughters) often miscarry there first child... we learned by the 70's that cortisol replacement could prevent this for us... but not every CAH or CAH carrier is dx'ed before they first get pregnant.
it looks like the over-lap i've been seeing is far more than co-incidental. <<

[Laura Robison]

Laura- about the receptors becoming hyper sensitive to estrogens (or hormones in general), would that be the case with a female child too? I have been exposed to hormones in utero and I have some weird stuff going on with my hormones, and with artificial hormones. Where did you find that information?

Is there anyone who is doing research on this?

I got my information from the book "The Riddle of Gender" by Deborah Rudacille. Boardwalk Angel told me about it. I would think that the estrogen receptors in a female child would be affected in the same way, but that's just my opinion. DES exposure in utero caused a lot of health problems in women, so it did something bad.

I have no idea if anyone is currently doing research on it. I have tried to learn more about it but a lot of the research papers I have tried to read have restricted access, and I don't want to pay to read them, and I can't understand much of the technical scientific stuff anyway.

[louisev]

I got my information from the book "The Riddle of Gender" by Deborah Rudacille. Boardwalk Angel told me about it. I would think that the estrogen receptors in a female child would be affected in the same way, but that's just my opinion. DES exposure in utero caused a lot of health problems in women, so it did something bad.

I have no idea if anyone is currently doing research on it. I have tried to learn more about it but a lot of the research papers I have tried to read have restricted access, and I don't want to pay to read them, and I can't understand much of the technical scientific stuff anyway.

I have a very keen interest in all of this, and hope that with time and with my new contracting job I'll have some disposable income to buy some of the medical reports you have to pay for - they are pricey. The reason for my interest is that of the few 11-beta CAH patients I have met, they all describe themselves as very hairy. And I was not only born bald as an egg (it was a subject of wide comment when I was a child) but I also have hairless arms, very spare body hair, and do not have the overt signs of virilization of my fellow 11-beta CAH patients. My mother took DES for her frequent CAH-carrier-caused tendency to miscarry, and still lost at least two fetuses near term who were both, as she described them - "male". They could easily have been either male or prader 4 or 5 XX with CAH. No surprise for a CAH carrier. Most male fetuses succumb, and DES would have guaranteed they would not survive long after birth regardless.

But my half-sister did survive birth, but died of metastatic lymphatic cancer, secondary to primary acute leukemia, at the age of 35, following a successful bone marrow transplant that put the leukemia into remission.

If the female fetus exposed to both the virilizing androgens of CAH as well as the feminizing effect of DES the result might possibly be a hairless female infant who looks far more feminine than she would have otherwise with "normal" CAH. And this may be part of the reason for the emergence of a "non-classical" diagnosis in so many women of my era. Maybe "non-classical"- i.e. less severe enzyme destruction and less severe androgenic changes such as hirsutism and baldness, as well as genital virilization, was mitigated and averaged out by DES administration during the first few weeks of fetal life for an entire generation of American females.

DES would do nothing to help the bone-age problem or the stunted height - I am 5 inches shorter than my younger sisters. And I have credible evidence that my mother ceased taking DES after witnessing the bizarre and unusual female infant I turned out to be. It might have been the white skin and hairlessness that spooked her most of all.

Before I went into the hospital for a cerebral arteriogram I was examined head to toe by a dermatologist as part of the pre-admission procedure for some reason. His remarks to me on looking at my body were "I have almost never seen such flawless epidermis. It is nearly perfect." I was amazed at his comment. I knew I had good skin but come on. And the only other thing I can relate it to - is AIS. Right now I only have two theories: either a) it was the DES that was responsible for these features or b) I also carry the AIS gene.

[Laura Robison]

And I was not only born bald as an egg (it was a subject of wide comment when I was a child) but I also have hairless arms, very spare body hair, and do not have the overt signs of virilization of my fellow 11-beta CAH patients. My mother took DES for her frequent CAH-carrier-caused tendency to miscarry, and still lost at least two fetuses near term who were both, as she described them - "male".

The research has shown that DES never protected women from miscarriages. It was all a complete sham.

We seem similar in one respect, in that I have no body hair, no arm hair, and I have no underarm hair, it's just tiny peach fuzz and hard to see. I have no idea if DES has ever been shown to do that. It would be interesting to know if others who were exposed to DES have sparse body hair and lack or have very sparse facial hair.

[louisev]

The research has shown that DES never protected women from miscarriages. It was all a complete sham.

We seem similar in one respect, in that I have no body hair, no arm hair, and I have no underarm hair, it's just tiny peach fuzz and hard to see. I have no idea if DES has ever been shown to do that. It would be interesting to know if others who were exposed to DES have sparse body hair and lack or have very sparse facial hair.

Very suggestive, certainly. I met a very observant career attorney not long ago and we were having dinner. I sat down and took off my blazer (I usually dress very warmly since I am tolerant to the cold) and she got a look at my arms. She said "You have no hair on your arms at all, do you know how unusual that is?" Not really true, there are very very tiny follicles. But they aren't visible from normal distance between people. It was precisely this hairlessness, and this infant baldness - because my mother had already given birth twice and this one was not like the others - that was so remarkable to her as the mother. I am wondering if maybe she doubled up on doses when she became pregnant with me because my father was so distraught over losing the first baby.