DES Action USA

DES Action was one of the first issue-specific groups that arose from the women’s health movement. Founded in 1977 by Nancy Adess and Pat Cody, whose daughter Nora served as executive director for fifteen years starting in 1990, DES Action initially responded to a crisis caused by the finding that DES (which had been given to millions of pregnant women between 1938-1971 to prevent miscarriage) caused cancer and serious reproductive tract abnormalities in these women’s daughters. Because there were several separate pockets of DES activism by mothers and daughters in Boston, Long Island, NY and San Francisco, DES Action really defines the grassroots organizing of the 1970s. It coalesced in San Francisco, where DES Action created educational materials and quickly became active on the policy level, calling for a halt to DES' other uses, including as a morning-after pill or to fatten animals sold for food. DES Action's work broadened as the full effects of DES emerged and it became clear that mothers, sons, daughters, and even grandchildren are harmed by the drug. DES Action's activists have successfully lobbied Congress to pass legislation on research and continued educational efforts. DES Action continues to be a strong voice challenging the pharmaceutical industry's heavy focus on, and marketing of, prevention through pills. They're a voice for the millions of women who trusted doctors who ignored the evidence that DES was never effective for pregnant women and that no one benefitted from its use, except the drug companies that ignored their own studies. See: www.desaction.org.
September 2005