Sybil Shainwald, who has represented a woman whose health has been irreparably damaged by drugs and medical devices for nearly half a century, passed away on April 9th at her Manhattan home. She was 96 years old.
Her daughter, Laurie Scheinwald Krieger, announced her death, but it has not been widely reported.
Scheinwald, 48, graduated from law school when he was hired by New York City law firm Schlesinger & Finz, and was hired by a team representing Joyce Bichler, a survivor of rare, rare, clear-cell adenocarcinoma, and bird clear-cell adenocarcinoma. Her cancer was caused by a medication her mother was taking while pregnant. DiEthylstilbestrol is a synthetic hormone known as DES and is sold under many brand names to prevent miscarriage.
At 18, Bicler underwent a radical hysterectomy, removing two-thirds of her ovaries, fallopian tubes and vagina. She was one of thousands of women who became known as the cancer and infertile daughters who suffered from her mother taking medication. She was suing Eli Lily, one of the biggest manufacturers of drugs, for damages.
When DES was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1947 for use in pregnant women, the study showed that it could produce cancer in mice and rats and harm the fetus across the placenta. However, companies sold it as a safe treatment for catch-alls of presence from spots to miscarriage during pregnancy, and continued to do so after reports began to arise that in fact it was ineffective in treating those conditions.
In the late 1960s, cases of clear cell adenocarcinoma began to be diagnosed in young women whose mother was taking medication. In 1971, the FDA told doctors not to prescribe it. By then, an estimated 5 million to 10 million people (women and their children who were prescribed it) had been exposed to DES, according to the National Cancer Institute.
When Mr. Vicler's case went to court in 1979, it was another of many cases filed over the years. However, it was not successful because it was difficult to determine which manufacturer produced the medicine in each case. Approximately 300 companies have created the DES.
Bichler's team presented a novel argument that all manufacturers share responsibility for drugs and their effectiveness. After five days of deliberation, the ju apprentice agreed and Ms. Vicler was awarded $500,000 in damages.
Scheinwald's role was extremely important, Bicler said in an interview: “I was this shy young woman and I was talking in public about my female organs. It was overwhelming. I was scared. Sybil was the only woman. She looked at me.
On the fourth day of the ju apprentice's deliberation, Mr. Bicler said Eli Lily had offered her a $100,000 settlement. Most of her team suggested that she might want to accept it.
“Sybil took my husband and me aside and said, 'What do you and Mike want to do? Don't be afraid,'” recalled Vicler. “Sybil gave me the authority and permission to say, 'We're not calm.' ”
She added, “I did what I needed to do, but it was really civil that made it happen.”
By the early 1980s, she had opened her own office and was Des Daughters' go-to lawyer. Over the next 40 years, she represented hundreds of women.
In 1996, she won a class action lawsuit to establish a fund for her daughters paid by drug manufacturers to cover medical and counseling costs and educational outreach programs.
However, she wasn't the only dangerous product that helped women get compensation.
She represented a woman whose silicone breast implants caused autoimmune problems. She represented women who were harmed by Dalconshield, an intrauterine contraceptive that caused pelvic infection and infertility, and women who were affected by the Norplant. (Several years ago, she urged the FDA not to approve the use of Norplants, warning of still unknown side effects.)
She helped women outside the US receive compensation for those who were prescribed false breast implants and Dalconshield. She was unsure that African women have never been told about the side effects of Dalconshield and that even after the doctors there were drawn from the American market, they were still prescribed.
She also spoke about the dangers of Depoprovera, another long-acting contraceptive associated with cancer in lab animals that had been prescribed for decades by women in 80 countries and women in the United States since the late 1960s. The FDA used as a birth control pill until 1992.
“The development of birth control has always meant drugs and devices for women,” Scheinwald said in 2019 in the oral history of veteran American feminists.
“We've been working hard to get into the world,” said Cindy Pearson, former executive director of National Women's Health Network. “She's going to sink her teeth into problems and it didn't matter how big the other person was.”
Sybil Brodkin was born on April 27, 1928 in New York City. This is the only daughter of Anne (Zimmerman) Brodkin and Morris Brodkin, who owned the restaurant. She was 16 years old and graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn, enrolled at William & Mary University in Williamsburg, Virginia, and received her Bachelor of Arts in History in 1948.
She married Sidney Scheinwald, an accountant and consumer advocate. He was Associate Director of the Consumer Union in 1960 and is now a consumer report.
She received her Masters in History from Columbia University in 1972, and in the same year she received a grant to establish a research center for the consumer movement that created oral history and overseen until 1978.
She enrolled at New York Claus School as a night student at the age of 44 and completed her law degree in 1976. She wanted to study law when she was earning a history degree in Colombia – the school offered a joint program, but as she recalled in oral history in 2019, “You'll be the replacement for a guy who practices forty years.”
Sheinwald was still mentioning the incident that led to her death.
In addition to Krieger, Shainwald was survived by another daughter, Louise Nasr. son, Robert. brother, Barry Schwartz; Four grandchildren. Five great grandchildren. Scheinwald passed away in 2003. Her daughter, Marsha Scheinwald, passed away in 2013.
“My practice consists of suing Corporate America on behalf of a woman, so I know I have been working before me for several more years,” Scheinwald said in a 2016 speech.
