Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the Diethylstilbestrol, or DES update web site back in March of this year, a resource that individuals who were pregnant or born during 1938 - 1971 can access to learn more about DES exposure and learn how exposure could affect them, their family and friends. CDC has been tracking the effects of DES in individuals whose mothers were prescribed the drug during pregnancy. In the United States, as many as five to 10 million people were exposed to DES between 1938 and 1971. DES is a synthetic estrogen that was prescribed to prevent miscarriages or premature delivery. However in 1971, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Drug Bulletin advising physicians to stop prescribing DES to pregnant women. The FDA warning was based on a study published in 1971 in the New England Journal of Medicine linking DES to a rare vaginal cancer in girls and young women exposed to DES in the womb. It is important to note that exposure of DES in men and women minimally increase their chances of cancer, reproductive complications and infertility. To access CDC's DES Update Self-Assessment Guide or additional DES resources, log onto www.cdc.gov/DES. Print versions of CDC's DES Update resources can be ordered online or through CDC's toll-free phone number at 1 (888) 232-6789.

This information is provided by the National Institutes of Health.