At Aaron M. Levine & Associates, we believe that the Palmer study may have underestimated the association between in utero DES exposure and cancer. All DES daughters were lumped together and it was difficult to take into consideration that half of the DES daughters were exposed for a short time in the early months of the pregnancy and the other half received the drug in ever increasing dosages right up to the last trimester. The recommended regimen was for increasing the dosage every week starting at 5 mg/day and going up to 125 mg/day towards the end of the pregnancy.
A fetus who was exposed to 125 mg/day of diethylstilbestrol in the later stages of the pregnancy, whose primordial breast was further matured, received the equivalent estrogenic effect of hundreds of birth control pills per day.
This fact when combined with the phenomena that the female breast buds do not become significantly extant until the later stages of pregnancy explains why the relative risk was only about double. We believe the true risk is much higher. Ideally they should have looked only at those daughters who were exposed through the end of the pregnancy, who received the longest dosages. However, due to a lack of prenatal records, this may have been difficult. Had they been able to do that, we believe, the relative risk would be much higher.
Our epidemiologist, pathologist, and molecular biologist support this view.
We are currently monitoring studies whereby fetal rodents are subjected to DES in similar proportion to what a human daughter would have received early and late in the pregnancy. Our scientists will be looking at their breast tissue to elucidate the nature of the exposure, looking for disruption in the architecture of the cells. Our scientists tell us they believe they will find changes in the nature and cytoarchitecture of breast cells which could make them more susceptible to breast cancer as they get older.
If only one half of the DES daughters with breast cancer statistically got their cancer from the exposure; compensating all of them would seem unfair but, when you consider that it was the fault of the DES manufacturers that negligently caused the increase in relative risk (even though you can't prove that any individual daughter's breast cancer is exclusively a DES result.) They all should be paid even if they receive half the compensation.
The drug companies are responsible for an increase of cancer in the population and they should be made to compensate all the women because of their attributable risk. This is what we plan to accomplish.
