Many cases go unreported and accurate, confirmed diagnosis requires an invasive surgical procedure. Prior to 1921, there were only twenty reports of the disease in the worldwide medical literature . As we describe in Chapter 10 of Our Stolen Future , the medical causes of endometriosis are shrouded in uncertainty. A few studies completed by the time we published OSF pointed toward contamination. Since then a small number of studies have been reported consistent with this trend.
None contradict it.
In 1992, German scientists reported an association between heavy PCB contamination and endometriosis that hinted at a new chapter in the search for causes of endometriosis. Then in 1993 researchers from the Harlow Primate Center at the University of Wisconsin published dramatic and unexpected findings . Their study was of monkeys used in research on the long-term reproductive effects of dioxin. When three of the dioxin treated animals died of severe endometriosis, a new study was initiated to compare the presence and severity of endometriosis with the animals exposure to dioxin. The study found a dose-dependent relationship between dioxin and endometriosis.