The British Medical Community Approach to Drug Labelling, Diethylstilbestrol use, Public Awareness

Extract from: Meyler’s Side Effects of Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs

Meyler's Side Effects of Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs book cover image
The DES drug was prescribed until 1973 in the UK

In Britain the medical community was alerted to the risks by an editorial in the British Medical Journal in 1971, but it was only in 1973 that the Committee on Safety of Medicines advised against the use of Diethylstilbestrol during pregnancy. In Britain, drugs were commonly not labelled with information about their contents, nor with warning of risk until well into the 1990s, thus patients were kept in ignorance.
No measures have yet been taken in Britain to alert the public to the need for medical surveillance of women who have been exposed to Diethylstilbestrol in utero. It is estimated that in the U.S.A, the Netherlands, and France, diethylstilbestrol was given to over 5.3 million pregnant women, and it is known that it has been given to pregnant women in most parts of the world
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Extract from: Meyler’s Side Effects of Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs
by Jeffrey K. Aronson.

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