But Chris soon found out that going off Stilbestrol was not so easy. "I couldn't sleep and when I did I had terrible nightmares," she says, "I bled so voluminously that I needed a D & C."
She was able to have one child, but has had "endless gynaecological problems and no way of knowing which DES exposure caused what," she says.
"Bit by bit," she wrote, "parts of my reproductive tract have become diseased and been removed."
Chris used to think that she was alone but now "I know there are a number of us who were stupidly experimented upon by," she says, "in my case, someone who really had no idea what he was doing."
And for all this, Chris still grew to be nearly 6 feet tall.
It is also now known, that many people may have unwittingly consumed DES as late as 1999, because according to the February 2000, DES Action USA Newsletter, DES was found in US beef exported to Switzerland that year.
"Its use in cattle was finally banned in 1980," the newsletter states, "but this has not deterred some unscrupulous cattle producers from once again exposing the public to this toxic substance."
"Ironically," it states, "it took a foreign country the more cautious Swiss to uncover this use in the United States."
DES Action USA immediately called on the FDA and the USDA to not only sanction the offenders but to also enact more stringent controls to protect the public.
"We are alarmed that consumers are only learning about this now," the group noted, "when the tainted beef was discovered in July, 1999."
"We wonder," DES Action stated, "if McDonald's, Burger King, and other major burger outlets are taking steps to protect their customers from DES."
"Given the poor state of beef inspection in this country," the newsletter said, "there is no way of knowing the extent of exposure to DES for American and international consumers, particularly since the USDA has not tested beef for DES since 1991."
According to the newsletter, the source of the DES-contaminated beef was the fourth-largest meatpacker in the US. "Clearly," the group warned, "the USDA must immediately resume and expand testing for DES, and do whatever is necessary to rid our food supply of this deadly carcinogen."
The risks of cancer associated with DES have been reported for years. A study published in the June 15, 2000, New England Journal of Medicine, conducted at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, analyzed questions answered by 5,421 DES daughters, with a median age of 30 (19-45), registered with the DES Information Center
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