By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Arline MacCormack first heard about DES from her mother when she was 17. Three decades later, MacCormack believes that the drug her mother took to prevent miscarriages caused her to develop breast cancer at age 44.
A drug that millions of pregnant women took decades ago to prevent miscarriage and complications has put their daughters at higher risk for breast cancer and other health problems that are showing up now, a new federal study finds.
"They've been identified one at a time. Nobody's been able to get the whole picture," said Dr. Robert Hoover, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute.
The new study, which he led, "takes the woman and looks at everything that can happen as a result of this drug," and adds evidence for some previously suspected risks like breast cancer, he said.
