DES And Breast Cancer Is There A Link?

DES is a synthetic estrogen that was prescribed to millions of women from the 1930′s to the early 1970′s to prevent miscarriage, premature births and other problems.  It was eventually withdrawn after being linked to a rare vaginal cancer in women whose mothers used DES.  Studies showed the drug didn’t prevent miscarriages at all.  

One women in Tresckow Pennsylvania, had five daughters, she didn’t take the drug with the oldest daughter, how ever she did with the other four.  Imagine the shock when two of the women ended up with breast cancer, even bigger shock when the other two were diagnosed with it as well.  All four of the sisters have also suffered miscarriages, fertility problems or other reproductive tract problems long suspected of being caused by pre-natal exposure to DES.  The fifth and oldest sister has not suffered from any of these.  

In 2008 one of the sisters found a study reporting increased breast cancer in daughters of women who took DES during pregnancy.  “That’s when we really started to say:’Wow, there really could be a link.  It’s not just in our head’,” said Donna Melnick McNeely, a special education assistant from Las Cruces, New Mexico, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 49.  

The four sisters are now suing a former maker of DES, or diethylstilbestrol, in a case unfolding in a federal court, one of the first of scores of such claims around the United States to go to trial.  The Melnick women are seeking unspecified damages.  Their mother and her doctor have now passed away, and Eli Lilly and co, the Indianapolis drug company being sues by the sisters, said there were no medical records of the mother’s treatment.

There is about 51 women who have a DES lawsuit in Boston against more than 12 drug companies.  Mediation ordered by a federal judge failed to produce settlements.  

“We believe these claims are without merit and are prepared to defend against them vigorously,” said Eli Lilly spokesman J. Scott MacGregor.  

Thousands of lawsuits alleged links between DES, cancers and fertility problems.  Many cases were settled.  Lawyers for the Melnick sisters cite a study published in 2011 led by Dr Robert Hoover, from the National Cancer Institute, found the chances a DES daughter would develop breast cancer by age 55 were about 1 in 25.  For the average woman, it was about 1 in 50.  

“This is a drug that was never adequaltely tested and never adequately warned,” said Aaron Levin, a lawyer for the Melnick sisters and the other women who have sued in Boston.  “There were no warnings at all, except in their literature they warned it could be carcinogenic to the mother, but they never warned about the babies.”

The four sisters were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1997 and 2003.  Treatment included lump-removal surgery, a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.