Ongoing litigation continues in Boston over the connection between the synthetic hormone DES (diethylstilbestrol) and breast cancer in the daughters of women who took the drug during pregnancy. The case is in preliminary proceedings over the admissibility of expert testimony, known in legal language as a "Daubert" hearing - after a 1995 case involving Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.
The Boston DES lawsuit was filed by 53 plaintiffs who have alleged that they contracted breast cancer due to prenatal exposure to DES. DES was an estrogenic medication that was prescribed to women to prevent miscarriages in the U.S. for decades until it was banned for pregnancy use in 1971. Due to the multigenerational nature of the legal action, the women have become known as the "DES daughters." The defendants include major drug companies such as Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Other harms associated with DES include a proven risk of breast cancer in DES mothers, an established risk of clear-cell vaginal cancer in DES daughters, as well as infertility and abnormalities in reproductive organs. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that "In utero exposure of women to DES is associated with a high lifetime risk of a broad spectrum of adverse health outcomes."
Moreover, the National Cancer Institute has also released various video bulletins regarding the potential long-term health effects of DES.
Daubert
The Daubert hearing gives the defendants an opportunity to try to exclude the strong scientific evidence that DES has brought illness and death to many American families. The federal judge in the DES daughters case must now decide whether evidence presented by the plaintiffs' medical experts (including the former Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health) is relevant to proving the plaintiffs' claim and that it rests on a reliable scientific foundation.
Aaron M. Levine, the attorney who represents the women, told the Boston Globe, "The law says that if you put a drug out on the market and it doesn't work and it increases the risk of breast cancer, then a person exposed to the drug who gets the breast cancer is entitled to compensation."
