{"id":27156,"date":"2025-05-04T20:04:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T20:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27156"},"modified":"2025-05-04T20:25:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T20:25:04","slug":"sybil-shainwald-lawyer-who-fought-for-womens-health-dies-at-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27156","title":{"rendered":"Sybil Shainwald, Lawyer Who Fought for Women\u2019s Health, Dies at 96"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After taking part in a landmark case against the manufacturers of the synthetic hormone DES, she represented many other victims of harmful drugs and devices.<\/p>\n

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Sybil Shainwald, a lawyer who for nearly half a century represented women whose health had been irreparably and often catastrophically harmed by poorly tested drugs and medical devices, died on April 9 at her home in Manhattan. She was 96.<\/p>\n

Her daughter Laurie Shainwald Kleeger announced the death, which was not widely reported.<\/p>\n

Ms. Shainwald was 48 years old and newly graduated from law school when she was hired at Julien, Schlesinger & Finz, a New York City law firm, and assigned to the team representing Joyce Bichler, a 25-year-old social worker who was the survivor of a rare cancer, clear-cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina and cervix. Her cancer was caused by a drug her mother had taken during pregnancy: diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic hormone known as DES<\/a> and sold under many brand names to prevent miscarriage.<\/p>\n

At 18, Ms. Bichler had undergone a radical hysterectomy, which removed her ovaries, her fallopian tubes and two-thirds of her vagina. She was one of thousands of women who became known as DES daughters for the cancers and infertility they suffered because their mothers had taken the drug. She was suing Eli Lilly, one of the drug\u2019s largest manufacturers, for damages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1947, when DES was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in pregnant women, studies had shown that it produced cancers in mice and rats and that it could cross the placenta and harm the fetus<\/a>. Yet companies marketed it as a safe remedy for a catchall of conditions, from spotting during pregnancy to miscarriages, and continued to do so even after reports began to surface that it was, in fact, ineffective in treating those conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A 1957 advertisement, aimed at doctors, for the Grant Chemical Company, one of the many manufacturers of the synthetic hormone DES. A jury agreed in 1979 that all the manufacturers shared responsibility for the drug\u2019s effects.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the late 1960s, cases of clear-cell adenocarcinoma began to be diagnosed in young women whose mothers had taken the drug. In 1971, the F.D.A. told doctors to stop prescribing it. By then, according to the National Cancer Institute<\/a>, an estimated five to 10 million people \u2014 the women who had been prescribed it and their children \u2014 had been exposed to DES.<\/p>\n

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After taking part in a landmark case against the manufacturers of the synthetic hormone DES, she represented many other victims of harmful drugs and devices.Sybil Shainwald, a lawyer who for nearly half a century represented women whose health had been irreparably and often catastrophically harmed by poorly tested drugs and medical devices, died on April 9 at her home in Manhattan. She was 96.Her daughter Laurie Shainwald Kleeger announced the death, which was not widely reported.Ms. Shainwald was 48 years old and newly graduated from law school when she was hired at Julien, Schlesinger & Finz, a New York City law firm, and assigned to the team representing Joyce Bichler, a 25-year-old social worker who was the survivor of a rare cancer, clear-cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina and cervix. Her cancer was caused by a drug her mother had taken during pregnancy: diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic hormone known as DES and sold under many brand names to prevent miscarriage.At 18, Ms. Bichler had undergone a radical hysterectomy, which removed her ovaries, her fallopian tubes and two-thirds of her vagina. She was one of thousands of women who became known as DES daughters for the cancers and infertility they suffered because their mothers had taken the drug. She was suing Eli Lilly, one of the drug\u2019s largest manufacturers, for damages.In 1947, when DES was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in pregnant women, studies had shown that it produced cancers in mice and rats and that it could cross the placenta and harm the fetus. Yet companies marketed it as a safe remedy for a catchall of conditions, from spotting during pregnancy to miscarriages, and continued to do so even after reports began to surface that it was, in fact, ineffective in treating those conditions.A 1957 advertisement, aimed at doctors, for the Grant Chemical Company, one of the many manufacturers of the synthetic hormone DES. A jury agreed in 1979 that all the manufacturers shared responsibility for the drug\u2019s effects.In the late 1960s, cases of clear-cell adenocarcinoma began to be diagnosed in young women whose mothers had taken the drug. In 1971, the F.D.A. told doctors to stop prescribing it. By then, according to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated five to 10 million people \u2014 the women who had been prescribed it and their children \u2014 had been exposed to DES.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27158,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27159,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27156\/revisions\/27159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}