The poor substitutes for evidence in this 2018 US study guaranteed that human transgenerational epigenetically inherited effects wouldn’t be found in the generations that followed after prenatal diethylstilbestrol (DES) exposure:

“A synthetic, nonsteroidal estrogen, DES was administered to pregnant women under the mistaken belief it would reduce pregnancy complications and losses. From the late 1930s through the early 1970s, DES was given to nearly two million pregnant women in the US alone.

Use of DES in pregnancy was discontinued after a seminal report showed a strong association with vaginal clear cell adenocarcinoma in prenatally exposed women. A recent analysis of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) DES Combined Cohort Follow-up Study showed elevated relative risks of twelve adverse health outcomes.

We do not have sufficient data concerning the indication for DES in the grandmother to determine whether adverse pregnancy outcomes in the third generation might resemble those of their grandmothers. Fourth generation effects of prenatal exposures in humans have not been reported.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890623818304684 “Reproductive and Hormone-Related Outcomes in Women whose Mothers were Exposed in utero to Diethylstilbestrol (DES): A Report from the US National Cancer Institute DES Third Generation Study” (not freely available)

---

This study had many elements in common with its poor-quality reference [25] “Transgenerational effects of prenatal exposure to the 1944–45 Dutch famine” which is freely available at https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.12136.

That study’s Methods section showed:

1. Its non-statistical data was almost all unverified self-reports by a self-selected sample of the F₂ grandchildren, average age 37.
2. No detailed physical measurements or samples were taken of the F₂ grandchildren, or of their F₁ parents, or of their F₀ grandparents, all of which are required as baselines for any transgenerational epigenetic inheritance findings.
3. No detailed physical measurements or samples were taken of the F₃ great-grandchildren, which is the generation that may provide transgenerational evidence if the previous generations also have detailed physical baselines.

That study’s researchers drew enough participants (360) such that their statistics package allowed them to impute and assume into existence a LOT of data. But the scientific method constrained them to make factual statements of what the evidence actually showed. They admitted:

“In conclusion, we did not find a transgenerational effect of prenatal famine exposure on the health of grandchildren in this study.”

---

The current study similarly used the faulty methods 1-3 above to produce results such as:

“We do not have sufficient data concerning the indication for DES in the [F₀] grandmother to determine whether adverse pregnancy outcomes in the [F₂] third generation might resemble those of their grandmothers.

Fourth [F₃] generation effects of prenatal exposures in humans have not been reported.“

Zero studies of probably more than 10,000,000 F₃ great-grandchildren of DES-exposed women just here in the US?

Who is against funding these studies? Who is afraid of what such studies may find?

One plausible hypothesis of these human studies would be of inherited effects that skipped generations! The rodent studies Epigenetic transgenerational inheritance mechanisms that lead to prostate disease and Epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of ovarian disease found inherited diseases that didn’t manifest until the F₃ great-grand offspring:

The F₃ generation can have disease while the F₁ and F₂ generations do not.

Ancestral exposure to toxicants is a risk factor that must be considered in the molecular etiology of ovarian disease.

For the current study:

• What could be expected from a study design that didn’t include F₃ women and men, which is the only generation that didn’t have direct DES exposure?
• What a nonsensical study design to permit NON-evidence like educational level!

Human studies of possible intergenerational and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance are urgently needed. There will be abundant evidence to discover if researchers will take their fields seriously.