60 Minutes turns its focus to one of Australia’s darkest medical legacies this Sunday 15 June, as Tara Brown leads a powerful investigation into the forced adoption era—and the dangerous drug given to thousands of women without consent.
Titled Bitter Pill, the episode revisits the decades between the 1950s and 1970s, when young, unmarried mothers were pressured—often institutionalised or manipulated—into giving up their newborns. As part of this process, many were administered Stilboestrol (DES), a synthetic hormone used to suppress lactation. They were not told of the risks.
Those risks have since proven far-reaching. Stilboestrol, banned in the 1980s, has been linked to cancers, infertility, and complications passed through generations. Brown’s report, produced by Laura Sparkes, gathers first-hand accounts from women still grappling with the consequences and families now piecing together the extent of the damage.
This episode arrives at a time when Australia is re-examining its historical treatment of women in institutional care and medical trials. Although formal apologies have been made at federal and state levels for forced adoptions, Brown’s investigation points to a medical system that not only failed to protect vulnerable women but exposed them to lasting harm under the guise of treatment.
60 Minutes: Bitter Pill airs Sunday, April 20 at 8:35 PM on Nine.
