Speaking to ITV News, Moran suggests that the UK government “should be looking at how they can start the process” of a public inquiry and compensation fund.
Between the 1940s and 1970s, thousands of women across the UK were prescribed a drug called Diethylstilbestrol (DES) during pregnancy. Marketed as a way to prevent miscarriage and promote healthy pregnancies, DES was later revealed to cause devastating harm, not just to the women who took it, but to their children too.
Broudie Jackson Canter is working with those affected by this awful drug to campaign for the UK government to finally take action. DES Daughters and DES Sons deserve redress. They deserve a statutory public inquiry to understand the scale of this scandal and how it was allowed to continue for so long. They deserve access to a compensation fund to make dealing with the long-term effects of Diethylstilbestrol more comfortable. They deserve access to cancer screening to understand the full extent of the risk to their health. They deserve to be treated by a healthcare sector who are better informed. Most importantly, they deserve justice.
Layla Moran MP, Liberal Democrat MP and Chair of the Health and Social Select Committee, supports the fight for government action. Speaking to Sarah Corker of ITV News she said: “As to whether we need further inquiries and compensation schemes, in the same way that we’ve seen calls for this for other scandals whether its infected blood, Thalidomide , whatever it is, it would strike me that this would fit that criteria and the government should be looking at how they can start that process.”
Following ITV News’ interview with DES Daughter Suzanne Massey, and Clare Fletcher, Partner at Broudie Jackson Canter, we are only now starting to see the very tip of the iceberg. The potential scale of this scandal is immeasurable. The lack of historical medical records for DES mothers makes it almost impossible to understand how far-reaching the impacts of DES are.
What we do know for sure is that the Diethylstilbestrol scandal has left a legacy of cancer, infertility, birth defects, and pregnancy loss. DES daughters face elevated risks of rare vaginal cancers, reproductive abnormalities, and infertility. DES sons have experienced urogenital abnormalities and fertility challenges. Emerging evidence now suggests that DES may affect the third generation too.
Despite this, the UK government has never formally acknowledged the harm caused by DES, nor has it offered any compensation or support to those affected. Victims are left to navigate the consequences alone, often without ever being told they were exposed to the drug.
That must change.
If you have been impacted by Diethylstilbestrol, please know that you are not alone on this journey. Many just like you are coming together to demand action. Join our campaign for free as we apply pressure to the government and lobby for them to finally face up to what they have ignored for so long and provide some kind of redress. Simply fill in our questionnaire below to join.
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You can also join the DES Daughters and Sons Support Group UK, a safe space for DES Daughters and Sons to connect, ran by DES Daughter Suzanne Massey.