Don’t believe medical propaganda: recurring miscarriages and DES

What is the difference between information and propaganda? Propaganda does not need to be a pack of lies. It can hold only truth, but if it leaves out important information, it is still manipulative.

A recent piece on medical prestige in helping women who gave birth repeatedly prematurely and fatally contains a lot of information. All very nice. So what is missing and why does it matter? It misses the whole black page in history of DES – the Diethylstilbestrol medication scandal. But first something else.

A loss of a pregnancy, of an expected child, is very traumatic. When it happens several times in a row, the pain is even bigger. My mother, who in her early twenties went through the Holocaust (and after the Liberation still in the concentration camp married another survivor, my father), nevertheless called the loss of her two first pregnancies the worst trauma of her life! Obstetricians can talk forever about the medical side of spontaneous abortions, but if they have no eye for the feelings of the bereaved mothers, then what kind of healers are they? I’m horrified that a 1,856-word article can fail to mention such a crucial aspect. (Its headline has the token word anguish.)

Back to the DES scandal. DES is an artificial sex hormone. When the pharmaceutical industry starting pushing DES as the wonder cure against repeated miscarriages (1947), it knew that it was not effective at all. But it still produced (misleading) statistics to ‘prove’ its great potential. So how did they get false numbers to show their point? This is not complicated.

They demonstrated, that when women take DES during their pregnancies, they would have less premature pregnancy loss than without. What a powerful simple convincing fact, no? No, not at all! One needs to compare the results for women who got fake DES with those who got real DES. They had such a study. It showed that administering DES made no difference! Even if doctors would not do anything, many women would eventually begin to carry their babies long enough so that they could survive after birth. The DES ‘miracle’ was nothing more than the natural trend of most expecting mothers to do better each time. They kept this finding in the background and kept up the false myth, to be able to continue to vend it for their own revenues only.

The eagerness to sell DES anyway, placed the pharmaceutical industry on the same plane as the tobacco and the weapon industry. In the end, they only cared about making a profit, no matter how many people get maimed and killed. At first sight it seems that producers of medication must be idealists who want to help healing. Forget it. It’s business and big business it is!

When my father, a physician, received his medical weekly, the first thing he always did was to tear out the colored glossy pages: the ads from the pharmaceutical industry. They went straight into a large wastepaper basket that was always on deck. When I asked him why, he said: My patients trust that I will treat them in accordance with the best medical knowledge once learned and updated constantly. That does not go together with me being influenced by what pill factories want me to prescribe.

He also used to say: My patients come to me for healing, not for experimentation and me turning over the results to the pharmaceutical industry. I work for the patients, not for Big Pharma. I prefer to prescribe known medication, that has proven its usefulness and of which side effects are well-known. Nonetheless, when his wife after the Holocaust, was having so many miscarriages, he agreed to what Professor Plate, the obstetrician of the Dutch Royal Family, (even not so wealthy Jews often will seek out the best doctors, who according to the Talmud (Kiddushin 82a) go to Hell) suggested: a new drug: DES. Why doubt the top specialist around?

(Thirty years on, I found the professor’s prescription for my mother: “If pregnant, high dose Stilbestrol (sic),” dated six months before my birth at 8 months of pregnancy – enough is enough and too much is plenty: I wanted out. Until the DES scandal broke, my mother kept referring to the royal doc as the third parent of her children. Professor Dr. W.P. Plate (1902-1983) until his death, never admitted the DES debacle in which he played such a prominent facilitating role.)

In 1971, clever doctors found that a very rare cervical cancer in women over 50 had become less rare and that seven out of eight of the young girls (ages 14-22) who they found with it, had in common that they were exposed to DES before birth. A deadly side-effect of a substance that by now was known not to have much of a desired effect in the first place, should have spelled the end of DES as medication. However, it didn’t.

Sure, in the Western world DES was no longer prescribed to pregnant women with previous miscarriages. But it continued to be used in the morning-after pill. Giving abortions! So much for its ability to save pregnancies. Worse was (but not unexpected if one understand the moral level of the pill mafia), that the DES in stock should not be wasted, so it was sold for a small price in Africa as remedy against headaches, especially helpful in … pregnant women! They’re not any better than weapon and cigarette producers, as I mentioned.

I ran a support group for child survivors of DES. We did very deep therapy. It was the most heavy support group I ever led or was in – much harder than second generation Holocaust survivors. Many worked on their early terror to be killed. Remember: DES provoked abortions. I found many psychological results of this poison in the survivors, decades after the last molecule had left our bloodstreams. (It goes too far here to give an overview of them. Maybe I’ll share the most prominent: A difficulty to remember to take breaks. I once asked where a certain DES activist was. She was on vacation in Spain. But, her colleague added quickly, she’s there also following a language course. O good, I said in irony, I was afraid for a moment that she was taking it easy.)

Physicians talking at length about helping women with multiple miscarriages and not humbly referring to the DES flop, is for me like talking about European progress in the 20^th Century and leaving out the Holocaust. One thus may share great information, but it’s still propaganda, because it omits something of great essence.

Now, just like then, we see the medical world exaggerating its helpfulness by not acknowledging the often greater self-healing powers of Mother Nature and/or G-d Almighty. If one doesn’t learn from past mistakes, one is bound to repeat them.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. * His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1