DES, once again | Arthritis Information

 

Once again (since I am reading all these posts from all these newly-diagnosed fellow sufferers) I am going to suggest you study DES - which was prescribed as a prenatal vitamin until 1997.  This drug is the first given to humans that can change our DNA, is passed on to our children, and has now been linked to causing autoimmune disease.  If you are looking for a cause, you might find an answer here.  The sickening part is that the highly effective FDA banned it, but our moronic doctors in order to win a free trip to the Bahamas continued to prescribe it to pregnant women under the guise of a "prenatal vitamin" for decades, against the law.  You want a boogeyman, I suggest you contact your toothless US Congressional representatives with their top-of-the line health care paid for by our tax dollars, who don't give a d*mn about Americans' health, only enriching themselves.   justsaynoemore39187.2884953704

How would someone whose mother didn't take DES end up with RA?

You don't say when DES was first prescribed, that info would be useful.

Here's some backup so that we can decide if we want to twitter about and complain or start to become a voice for the millions and millions of Americans who are starting to pour into our broken health care system with bizarre symptoms and no help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol

Combine horse estrogen with birth control pills, and you have a lethal combination to pass on to your children.  And its all just for women, while men get to choose between three limp d*ick drugs.  You think I am mad, you bet I am, and you should be too.  Take care because no one else is paying attention. 

http://www.cdc.gov/des/consumers/about/update.html

Oh, and here is the Center for Disease Control's backup to what I am posting here.  Our medical doctors, our rheumatologists, our wise physicians are fully aware of why we are having autoimmune problems, why do you think we are all getting the run around and dead silence?

While I despise our current medical/insurance system and believe it's all geared to maximum profits rather than public health, RA existed long before any of these drugs. I think there has been evidence of it about as long as there have been people.

It may be that there is MORE of it now - just as there is supposed to be more autism now. Part of that, though, isn't drugs at all - or not what we call drugs. Do you have your lawn fertilized? You're pouring toxins onto something you walk on. You walk on your lawn and carry that poison right into your house. Do you use anti-bacterials? You're encouraging the growth of killer bacteria - the ones that don't die off when you use that stuff. Our produce is poisoned. Our animals are fed things so disgusting, I don't want to think about it.

We need to be more educated about what we are dumping in the water we drink, the earth we walk on, the air we breathe. There's no "other" here. We're all guilty.

DES was a horrific drug  (and yes, I do agree that women are often guinea pigs. I think less. now, since women are part of the research chain and the heads of corporations). But I don't think it's the cause of my RA.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&a mp;a mp;db=PubMed&list_uids=3371486&dopt=Abstract

link of DES to autoimmune disease 1988

The medical professionals, the FDA, the CDC, Congress, our elected officials, the pharmaceutical companies - they have all known about it and won't tell us - and we go for help and are told "we are just making it all up and are just depressed."  It's enough to make a sick person sick. 

justsaynoemore39187.3434143519 I did not take DES (thank goodness) and I do not think my mom did either.  But I managed to get RA and 2 of my daughters managed to get RA too.  One of them is a JRA girlie.  The DES may have something to do with some people, but not all of us.  I blame good old fashioned genes in my case.  I am betting that when my 2nd daughter hits adult hood she will pop up with it too.  We were just very unlucky with Danielle that she got it as a juvenile.  This is the first I have heard of it happening while a juvenile in my family.  I waas not on the pill before I became pregnant with Danielle either.  We used an alternative form of birth control before we had her.  I was on the pill with my 2nd daughter and she so far is not showing any hints of RA.  So who knows.  We can try and pinpoint a cause of RA butI have given up on trying.  It's like banging my head against a brick wall.   My thinking is quite simple (I'm well known for being simple LOL)that there is more RA and more Austism etc etc.....in the world today, because simply there are more people in the world today.  And modern science, research, communication systems & education & other progressive technologies have enabled the medical profession (as well as all others) develop and learn how to beat or treat the things that plague our planet and our people today!

Could be that any number of the millions of chemicals that we use, inhale, eat - blah blah could be responsible - or not!!   Could be the stuff that's coming out of all the erupting volcanoes around the world - or not!! 

I am a genealogy nut,  and have the death cert. of my great-grandfather who died in Montreal General Hospital in 1886 - cause of death was stated to be "Rheumatism".   He was only 39 years old.

If 1886 was today, would his diagnosis have been RA??  Or maybe something else entirely??  In 1886, would he have suffered terrible pain and deformity, because the sorts of medications we have today just weren't around??

I shudder when I think that in the not too distant past, there was not a lot that could be done to stop the progression of not only this disease, but cancers, heart disease, and many others.

I for one, am simply very pleased that I live in the 21st century, and not in the 19th, and thank God for current medical science, at least something is available that can slow the progression and ease the pain.

Awful as it all is, I don't believe we can blame today's scientists or politicians or drug companies for drugs that were produced and dispensed with the best of intention at the time. 

Told ya I was simple!!

I'm with you on this Jeanne and would like to add - pre NHS a lot of ill people simply didn't get treated because they couldn't afford to see even a GP never mind a specialist - if they existed. My mum tells me stories of when the National Health Service (NHS) first started and many people wouldn't use even the Well Baby clinics because it was regarded as 'charity'. So poverty and ignorance played a part in keeping figures low for any number of ailments.

As for autism, I believe numbers may be up because of awareness not an increase in cases. Many families would just carry on as normal if they had what was often refered to as a 'backward' child in their brood. I remember hearing of such and such a child being backward, nobody really batted an eyelid. I'm not saying life isn't difficult for sufferers and their familes (I speak from experience) but I do think families took such things more in their stride way back.

Tinker39188.035625Tinker - I also totally agree with your statement about "awareness", and poverty and ignorance,  and in the case of the Autism Spectrum Disorders, and of course, other disabilities, these people are much more visible in today's world, since the school mainstreaming philosophy mushroomed world wide.

Families did take things in their stride - you're right - because their was just no other choice for them, other than being institutionalised  They just got on with it and "managed". 

As a Special Ed. teacher for many years, I have seen many changes in the Education system, not all of them good, not all of them bad. But I guess, at the time, again, the people who made the decisions about the Education System were doing what they thought was the best thing at the time.  Then later it would be improved upon, or changed,
that's called progress, I guess!

In NZ we also have a free Public Health system, where people can access Specialist Medical Help at the Hospitals, if referred by their GP.
GP is free for chn under 6 yrs old, over that age generally around - .   People on lower incomes & beneficiaries get subsidies- their GP visits cost .

Medications are subsidised as well - High Users get extra  very good subsidy - I only pay for each prescription item, now that I have had to give up working, and can no longer keep up with the cost of my medical insurance, other than a surgery plan. (There are long waiting lists for joint replacements etc  Kiwilass239188.1237731481Jeanne,


Kodus to you. That was very well said and I agree with you. I also have great grandparents who had RA. I think often about how hard their lives must have been and how they just had to "grin and bear it." I'm thankful that Enbrel and MTX have been able to give me a very close to normal life for the last 7 to 8 years.


Sarah
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