Kari Christianson

Kari Christianson, a DES Daughter, has been active with DES Action USA since 1980, when she co-founded a group in Minnesota. Elected to the DES Action Board of Directors in 1983, she served as president of the organization for three 3-years terms over the next twenty years. In 2005 she became the Program Director of DES Action USA, serving in this staff position for ten years before retiring in 2015.

In 1992, DES Action staff and volunteers were in the forefront of the Congressional passage of the Women’s Health Initiative, which included the DES Research and Education Amendments. This legislation directed the government to continue DES research and develop education material for the public and health care providers about the adverse health effects of prenatal and generational DES exposure.

Christianson was the DES Action representative to the NCI-funded pilot DES education project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which developed programs for health care providers. She was a member of the Steering Committee that oversaw the final project, which resulted in the CDC’s DES Update of 2003.

From 2001-2004 with then DES Action Executive Director Nora Cody, she participated in the Prevention First Coalition that represented the concerns of consumers about drug advertising to the public.

For almost twenty years Christianson was a member of the Steering Committee of the NIH National Cancer Institute DES Follow-up Study, which oversaw the research into the effects of prenatal and generational exposure to DES. She also served as the DES Action USA representative to the NIEHS Partners annual meeting with the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and its regular conference calls about new research at NIEHS. With these groups of researchers, scientists and clinicians, she shared the health, reproductive and environmental endocrine disruption concerns of the DES-exposed population.

In 2023 Christianson received an award from her alma mater, Concordia College of Moorhead, Minnesota, for her lifelong work in the nonprofit sector with DES Action USA, MedShadow Foundation, and other national and local organizations.