DES Daughters

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

DES or Diethylstilbestrol was a form of synthetic estrogen developed in the 1930s, regularly prescribed to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage. But in the 1960s it was discovered that not only did it not prevent miscarriage, it also had dangerous side effects for the daughters of the women who had taken it while pregnant – including reproductive problems and rare gynaecological cancers. Millions of women were exposed all over the world. Lucy Burns speaks to mother and daughter Linda and Katie Greenebaum about their experiences of DES.

This programme was made with the help of DES Action in the USA. www.DESAction.org

Photo: black and white image of smiling baby (H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	Hi and
0:35.0	today I want to take you back to downloading witness history from the BBC World Service.
0:38.0	I'm Lucy Burns and today I want to take you back to 1971
0:42.0	and a medical scandal about a drug prescribed to pregnant women
0:46.2	that had dangerous side effects, not for the people who took it, but for their children.
0:51.2	It came under several different brand names, but the chemical
0:54.2	compound was called Die Ethel Still Beastrol or DES.
1:00.3	Death Flex, to prevent abortion, miscarriage, and premature labor, recommended in all
1:07.5	pregnancies bigger and stronger babies too.
1:11.2	DES was a tragedy.
1:13.0	In the 50s, pregnant women were given a drug,
1:16.0	Dietyl still Bistrol, called DES,
1:19.0	to treat threatened miscarriage.
1:21.0	It worked.
	...

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