A Glut of Abnormal Neurodevelopment in One Family — Did Grandma's 1960s Pregnancy Drugs Cause Germline Errors?

Chrissy, pictured here in grade school, was exposed to multiple drugs in utero, including synthetic steroid hormones. She suffered heart, dental, endocrine and gynecological problems. Her children suffer neurodevelopmental problems.

A page from Chrissy's sister's prenatal exposure records from 1965 indicate she was exposed to multiple powerful pharmaceuticals, including synthetic progestins and estrogens (Deluteval 2x), antipsychotics, diuretics, mercury, and others. Like Chrissy, she has suffered a lifetime of medical problems, and her son exhibits multiple neurodevelopmental abnormalities.

Researchers "wave off our kids’ disabilities as 'genetic' without ever pausing to think about what novel and powerful chemicals may have in fact drugged our DNA."

by Chrissy Young

I was born and raised in Boston, am a die-hard Red Sox fan, and have a beautiful son and daughter, both of whom have attention, conduct, processing, and learning disorders. Also before having them I had a girl with Turner’s syndrome but she was not born alive. My daughter also has precocious puberty. My older sister’s son is also behaviorally disabled, he is diagnosed with ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, a panic disorder, and is on the spectrum.

How did my sister and myself have between us three children with serious neurological disabilities? I think the clue lies with our mother, that is, our disabled children’s grandmother. Our mother has Type 1 diabetes, and as a consequence had been a patient at the famed Joslin Diabetes Clinic in Boston when she was pregnant with us in the 1960s.

Because I had many strange health problems growing up, including cardiac defects, abnormal dental structure, and persistent gynecological problems, and my sister had serious health problems, too, we looked into the drugs my mom had been given when she was pregnant with us. What we discovered was utterly shocking.

In addition to insulin, we saw that the Joslin clinic has also given my mom weekly injections of synthetic steroid hormones — a drug called Deluteval 2x (the 17-OHPC progestin Delalutin, plus estradiol valerate). These drug combos were mistakenly thought to help prevent miscarriage in “at-risk” pregnancies, including moms with diabetes.

In addition, we obtained records that my mom was regularly given many other drugs during pregnancy, including:

• Sedatives, including chloral hydrate
• Methamphetamine (desoxyn)
• Cough syrup with codeine
• Tetracycline
• Diuretics, including hydrodiuril (antihypertensive) and mercuhydrin (preeclampsia prevention, ineffective)
• Anti-nausea drugs, including Compazine
• Thyroid hormone
• Atropine (anticholinergic, unknown use)
• Aspirin
• Hykinone (synthetic vitamin K)
• Kaopectate, Maalox, vitamins

My mother’s sister, who did not have Type 1 diabetes, had unmedicated pregnancies, and her offspring and grand-offspring are all typically developing, in stark contrast to our families.

There is so much more to the epidemics of autism and ADHD and other mental disabilities than researchers have been thinking about.  They are not aware of the heavy and wanton use of pregnancy drugs such as those to which I and my sister were subjected. And they do not think about what these drugs might have done to our developing gametes—instead they wave off our kids’ disabilities as “genetic” without ever pausing to think about what novel and powerful chemicals may have in fact drugged our DNA.

My sister and I were both really lucky to get records of the drugs we were exposed to in the womb. I believe there are no coincidences and I think we were blessed with those rare records for a reason. I think they can help bring to light this horrible pregnancy drug history no one ever thinks about, and its catastrophic multigenerational consequences.

Chrissy Young lives in Boston.