Home / Health / DES Drug Scandal: First Man Speaks Out
DES Drug Scandal: First Man Speaks Out
10 Mar
Summary
- Maxwell Samuda links his reproductive issues to DES, a drug his grandmother took.
- DES was given to prevent miscarriage and suppress milk production in the 70s.
- The family supports calls for a public inquiry and compensation scheme.
Maxwell Samuda, a former contestant on Love Island, has become the first man to publicly detail health issues he attributes to diethylstilbestrol (DES). This drug, a synthetic estrogen prescribed to women from the 1940s to the 1970s to prevent miscarriages and other conditions, is believed to have caused generational health problems for his family.
Samuda, 26, believes his reproductive system issues, including undescended testes as an infant, a benign lump, varicocele, and low sperm count, are linked to DES exposure through his grandmother, Maureen Day, 78. Day took DES in the early 1970s and was later diagnosed with breast cancer. Samuda's mother, Natalie Samuda, 50, also suffers from breast cancer, autoimmune conditions, and had to undergo extensive gynecological treatments, including a hysterectomy.
The campaign group DES Justice UK estimates that around 300,000 women in the UK were given DES. The drug was definitively linked to clear cell adenocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the cervix and vagina, in 1971. Despite this, it continued to be prescribed in Europe until the late 1970s. DES is also associated with other cancers such as breast and pancreatic.
Maxwell Samuda, who now resides in Dubai, expressed his distress over potential fertility issues, stating, "I'm not actually guaranteed that... it's definitely an unsettling feeling." He and his family are actively supporting DJUK's demand for a public inquiry and a compensation scheme, highlighting that such injustices are still affecting lives today, unlike in the US and Netherlands where compensation has been established.
