We’ve been discussing it here for weeks (click ‘Breast Cancer’ in the Categories sidebar). Now the National Cancer Institute Admits the link between Breast Cancer, abortion and the pill.
Update and Correction: A commenter in the comboxes rightly points out that NCI has not changed its position. I should have stated that this same researcher who led the charge against a link by prematurely pronouncing on two longitudinal studies now finds herself betrayed by her own data.
From Lifesite News:
WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – U.S. National Cancer Institute researcher Dr. Louise Brinton, who was the chief organizer of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop in 2003 that persuaded women that it was “well established” that “abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk,” has reversed her position and now admits that abortion and oral contraceptives raise breast cancer risks.
An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality, in women under age 45, contained an admission from Dr. Brinton and her colleagues that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%.
The study found that “a statistically significant 40% increased risk for women who have abortions” exists, and that a ” 270% increased risk of triple negative breast cancer (an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality) among those who used oral contraceptives while under age 18 and a 320% increased risk of triple negative breast cancer among recent users (within 1-5 years) of oral contraceptives,” also exists.
This is good news and bad news. It’s bad news for women who have swallowed the lie that abortion and contraceptive sex are perfectly acceptable choices, without consequences.
It’s good news because women need to understand who stands for truth, who stands for their best interests. It isn’t the Democrat Party.
It’s also good news because we can begin to exert some significant leverage in restoring a Culture of Life and a Civilization of Love.
Follow the other articles on this by clicking ‘Breast Cancer’ in the “Categories” sidebar panel.
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It’s about time they admitted it! How many women have endangered their lives because of their lie that birth control pills are harmless?
I’m glad they are finally admitting the link between abortion and breast cancer as well. I just wish they would have done it sooner. I don’t trust most cancer organizations because of their willingness to ignore and dismiss evidence that could potentially save lives.
Two problems with this Gerard:
1. The article doesn’t actually say that the NCI has changed its position. It just says htis NCI researcher who collaborated on this study has.
2. From the abstract it sounds like the study only dealt with correlation, not cause. Are abortion and OC themselves the cause of cancer? Or is it their ability to delay or reduce pregnancies that result in ligher risk (it has been shown that age at first birth and number of births has an effect on breast cancer incidence).
Asitis,
The article tells that the NCI researcher who organized the conference which dismissed a link between breast cancer and abortion has now discovered for herself a 40% increased risk of BC in women who have had abortions. That’s gigantic, especially in light of the fact that her conference tortured the interpretation of the data in two large prospective studies.
Read my post dealing with that: https://gerardnadal.com/2009/12/17/the-breast-cancer-abortion-link/
All of my posts on this are in the Breast Cancer link within the “Categories” sidebar.
As to your second objection, the rest of my posts on this topic and their links point substantially beyond mere correlation or coincidence. The well-known biology involved is treated very well in the links within those posts.
NCI will eventually change its position. I predict that they will try to save face by dismissing Dr. Joel Brind and the others who have been relentless in this, and hold out their own data as the first ‘serious’ data that merited a cautious change in approach. Later, after they have had about ten to fifteen more years to allow cancer to develop in the women involved in the two large prospective studies whose data were analyzed prematurely, they will declare a definite link.
Let’s come back in fifteen years and see how accurate my prediction is. Either way, dinner will be on me. 😉
Okay, thanks for that Gerard.
So then it remains then that the NCI has not necessarily changed its position. And that this study that an NCI researcher collaborated on, showed corelation between abortion and contraception, but did not look at causation.
ah, the famous correlation/cause deflection
I think those favoring abortion also use this in the abortion argument too!
I think they will eventually have to own up to the fact that abortions/OC cause breast cancer because the bottom line will be lawsuits
one wonders how OC’s affect women who have been on the pill for 30 years! beginning when they were young teens.
the entire “rights” of women has been built on a deathly house of cards
instead of reproductive freedom, women have been offered a form of slavery – slavery to drugs and drug companies all the while going against their very feminine nature and biology
we’ve been told to deny our feminine nature and make our bodies like men’s
the new feminism offers women the chance to harness their feminine gifts through intellect, healthy choice, mutual respect, self-control and self-knowledge.
Mary Catherine, it is important to realize that corelation and cause are two different things.
yes and it’s important for you to realize and accept that birth control and abortion harm women and babies
I’m not stupid Asitis.
no amount of research is good enough for people supporting abortion rights and the contraceptive mentality
there’s always something flawed with the research isn’t there?, even when it’s done by people who support abortion but find results contrary to their position
the fact is, OC are artificial hormones pumped into a woman’s body to fool it into thinking it is always pregnant
women do not have a normal cycle on OC’s
the bleed they have is NOT a menstrual period, it is a break through bleed
the cycle of pills was designed this way to fool millions of women into THINKING their bodies are behaving like a normal woman’s
but it is NOT.
you cannot continually do this and not have some consequence to the biological organism
even IF there were no chemical consequences from taking repeated doses of hormones over long periods of time, the fact that OC cause women to delay childbearing or not have children or fewer children IS an important factor because this impacts their health
There are many more effects to OC than just chemical and biological
It has already been proven that there are psychological effects to – women disinterested in sex (may also have a hormonal basis), unable to bond with mates (also hormonal to some degree) and a disinterest in children and pregnancy
“So then it remains then that the NCI has not necessarily changed its position. ”
did you even read the title of this post?
Gerard NEVER said it did.
Asitis,
Actually, the makers of OC have stated that the pill causes cancer, that’s why they advertise their new, lower-dose hormone product as being “safer”.
Gerard, OC makers do indeed state the increase risk of some cancers with taking their product. Just as they state the decreased risk of other cancers. This is can all be found in the insert with the pills when you get them from your pharmacist.
And Mary Catherine, you’re going to have a hard time selling me that taking OC for along time has made me unhealthy and disinterested in sex. Don’t make me challenge you to a race, compare our health charts! The only consequence I have had from taking the pill is the one for which it was intended: I have been able to decide for myself when I will have children and how many.
Finally, I know the Life Site News article never claimed that NCI had changed its poistion. But Gerard did. And Bethany reiterarted it. And you took corelation to be causation.
Here’s the thing. An NCI researcher collaborates on a study that shows a corelation between abortion/OC and breast cancer. And somehow that becomes this: NCI reverses its position and admits abortion/OC causes breast cancer.
Asitis,
Yes, should have stated that the NCI investigator who led the charge against a link now finds herself betrayed by the data.
I’ve edited your comment to remove ad hominems.
Last chance to comport yourself civilly. After this, I’ll spam you permanently.
well first off Asitis, not EVERY woman who takes OC is going to be made sick by them
But with tens of millions of women on OC’s for prolonged periods of time and at increasingly younger ages, we CAN expect serious health effects in a large number of women and that as the use increased, we will see more women sickened by OC”s
causation is not an exact science – it’s often very difficult to prove 100% that a certain behavior causes illness and disease – I think you know this.
I don’t believe the link between lung cancer and smoking has ever been conclusively proven yet we know that most people who get lung cancer were smokers
And we encourage people NOT to smoke
the sheer numbers of women getting breast cancer is astonishing
women’s lifestyles have changed alot in the last 50 years but the most significant change has been the almost universal use of OC’s AND the resultant delayed childbearing or lack of childbearing
as a woman you KNOW intuitively that your body was not designed for this
it was not designed to have period after period
it was nto designed to ingest vast amounts of hormones…
I think what bothers you and women like you is that you have a deep need to have your lifestyle “choice” validated
but there is a large body of research that demonstrates that OC’s are harmful to women
OC is politicized in a way that smoking never was
feminists have managed to tie in OC’s to women’s rights, especially the right to control their body and the body of the baby they carry.
Lets be forthright and honest about this.
Sure, let’s be forthright and honest about it: I honestly do NOT “have a deep need to have my lifestyle choice validated”. I see nothing invalid about my decision to control my fertility. I enjoy and have always enjoyed a healthy and happy sex life. I have two wonderful sons and thoroughly enjoy all the rewards and cahllenges of being a mother.
Although I am not without opinions of my own, I am going to attempt to put the dueling comments above by committed advocates in a more objective context. Honestly, everyone is seizing on any evidence for their own pre-conceived preferences, and denying anything contrary. That isn’t good science, but it is standard for political debate.
What we need to recognize about ALL medical intervention is that there are costs as well as benefits. There is no such thing as a free cure. Taking oral antibiotics after a root canal can wreak havoc with your digestion, because there are bacteria that need to be fruitful and multiplying in your intestines for the human body to process food intake.
Correlation is NEVER sufficient to establish cause, but it is a good clue. Then it is necessary to examine what cause might explain the correlation. All heroin addicts started on milk. If there is a correlation between IQ and success in education and business, does it show that intelligence is genetic? Or does it show that schools and businesses rely heavily on IQ tests, the lazy ignorant bureaucrats?
It is generally true that not having a baby at all can increase the risk of breast cancer. Studies of nuns have found a high correlation. It is not at all implausible that use of birth control pills, or having an abortion, could increase the risk of breast cancer. One hundred years ago, dying in childbirth was also a leading cause of mortality for women. Now, that is less true, IF you have access to the best quality hospital care, and it helps to be insured.
So, there are MANY factors to consider, and it is fine well and good that women should be thoroughly informed of ALL the reasonably known possibilities to make an INFORMED decision. When I was about fifteen, I wondered whether using novocaine during dental treatment would shorten my life expectancy by a few years. I decided that if it did, I would rather spare myself the pain anyway.
Abortion is not a positive good, ever. For some women, and some couples, it may be the most appropriate choice, after careful consideration of all the implications. I doubt that there are many women who could go through an abortion without some emotional toll — but then, I’ve never been a woman, so I will never know for sure. There are many women who on principle would never consider abortion for any reason, and they don’t have to.
How might these findings relate to the high incidence of breast cancer in African-American women?
Janet,
Planned Parenthood operates nearly 80% of its clinics in inner city neighborhoods. Add to that the reality that African American women have FIVE times as many abortions as white women. African Americans comprise roughly 11% of the US population, but have 37% of the abortions, not to mention all the OC’s being pumped into young African American girls.
It’s not hard to see, given the data.
SJ,
We are miles apart on much, but I think that your well-thought explanations are exceptional. However, this is not a matter of people wanting to see what they want to see. This is a matter of two major cancer societies who deliberately tortured the data in two longitudinal studies by only considering outcomes after ten years, when cancers take considerably longer to emerge. They did this to throw cold water on a hot emerging body of research showing a link.
Abortion corrupts everything it touches.
Gerard, true that the rate of abortion is high for African American women due largely to their higher rate of unintended pregnancy, but it’s a stretch to then say “it’s not hard to see” that this explains the high rate of breast cancer in African American women.
As you must well know, there are many other risk factors. Off the top of my head, obesity and diet are two that come to mind which could apply. Not to mention genetics.
yes but genetics combined with OC’s and certain lifetstyle choices such as not to have children are proving quite deadly to women
and who all knows about their genetics……
not everyone gets tested you know.
too bad about only 2 children Asitis, you don’t know what you’re missing! 😉
but your children don’t
if one should die the other would be left to him/herself…..
and what for? material possessions? for a special school? for a career or an expensive college?
hmmm, I’d much rather have a sister or brother to enjoy along the road of life than some material good that rusts into oblivion
but then, that’s just me! 😉
That’s a good reason to have more kids – so if some die the ones that are left have backup siblings.
No Mary Catherine, my reasons are not material ones. I come from a family of eight but we were what you would call upper middle class. Private schools, expensive camps, horses, etc. etc. All but one of us went to college and most have graduate degrees.
My reasons for having a smaller family are other than those that you automatically assumed, and are good ones for us and for the children.
no Asitis, the reason to have more children is because children are a gift from God to married couples and to their children
very interesting that you see more than two children as “back up” siblings…..hmmmm
each child is a gift to it’s siblings and to it’s parents
each child is a gift to the world because each brings it’s own uniqueness to our world.
It’s a shame that couples place so many limits on God’s generosity.
That’s what OC’s are all about.
Man deciding what it best for himself rather than asking God what HE might want want for them…..
But then I forget, people are not interested in what God might want from them. 😦
They are only interested in themselves, which is why we also have abortion.
Mary Catherine, please try to remember… I come from a family of eight so I would hardly say that I consider anything more than two as back up siblings. I was only reiterating your words.
Another thing you should know about me: I am an agnostic. So what ever beliefs you might have about what God wants for you and others are not shared by me. Such thoughts do not factor into my decision as to how large a family I might want or hope for.
And no, that does not mean that I am only interested in myself.
too bad for you. 😉
I definitely agree that those who are “for” abortion are open to denying valid conclusions and hiding inconvenient data. I also believe that those who are determined to suppress all abortions are motivated to do the same. Both sides may even do so in good faith, without knowing what they are doing, or in bad faith, as may well have happened with these two studies. Promoting abortion as a positive good is obscene, There are circumstances in which I believe it is a rational and compassionate option, but never one to be taken lightly.
Mary Catherine, I’m not sure why you take such delight in telling asitis that she should have more children because you believe more children would be good. You can have all the children you want. asitis can have all, and no more than, the children she wants. Thank God, none of us are answerable to a totalitarian government which dictates how many children we may have.
As little as one hundred years ago, one could pretty much expect that by the time a person graduated from high school, half their kindergarten class would be dead. It may be that, since we can save most of those lives, we don’t need to bring quite so many children into the world in the first place. Children are beautiful, and I love the picture of Gerard’s “Staff,” but they also need to be provided for. There are far more children already in the world than adoptive parents have been found for…
So true Sirarlys. Ill cut Mary Catherine some slack: maybe it’s her reaction to an impression she gets ( real or perceived) that she shouldn’t have so many children. Personally, I don’t have an issue with large families. They are great. So are small families. And everything in between. The size doesn’t matter so long as they are raised well and with love.
“Forty percent increase” is misleading.
Even if the study is right, it doesn’t mean that your risk of b/c goes up forty absolute percentage points. It means it goes up forty percent OF WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WITHOUT THE ABORTION. That’s MUCH smaller, certainly not “gigantic” as Gerard said in a comment above.
Also, the whole discussion omits the fact that b/c is primarily a disease of the elderly, people in the gravy-years when you are lucky not to already have died of something else.
Remember the South Park episode with the cigarette-factory-workers singing their happy song about smoking?
“And if it gives me cancer when I’m eighty I don’t care;
Who the H*ll wants to be ninety anyway?”
This is actually wrong for smoking, because the smoking-cancers come much sooner, but it applies correctly to breast-cancer.
Even the finding about triple-negative cancer, which affects younger women, is misleading. It’s so rare that even a 270% increase in the risk is still vanishingly small.
Here’s a question: HOW BIG was the study by Dolle et al, which convinced her to change her position? Small studies are susceptible to statistical noise.
The main reason breast-cancer rates are going up is: people are living longer.
Donesomeepi,
I have too. Longevity explain some, but not the increased rates in younger women. Arguments made at ACS and NCI have suggested better screening, which doesn’t make sense.
“Mary Catherine, I’m not sure why you take such delight in telling asitis that she should have more children because you believe more children would be good. You can have all the children you want. asitis can have all, and no more than, the children she wants. Thank God, none of us are answerable to a totalitarian government which dictates how many children we may have.”
well Siarlys the problem is that all the children most couples want today is none, or one or maybe if they are really, really well off, two.
It’s too much work, expense and self limiting to have any more in most people’s minds.
That is the view, sadly.
I’m not too keen on this idea that it’s all about what we want….
Of course, now there’s the situation in Europe where no amount of chiding, encouragement or reward can make women interested in having any children. They simply don’t have “room” in their lives for children.
there is also the view that I’ve encountered personally, that couples can’t possibly raise more than one or possibly two children properly.
This view comes from the idea that children “need” all these “things” to grow up into well adjusted, functioning adults.
Children don’t need vacations in the Bahamas or Europe. They don’t necessarily need to play organized sports. They don’t necessarily need to go to university. What many children today do need is another sibling.
Mary Catherine, you live in your own little world if you really believe that only the “really really well off” want two children. You also have a very negative, judgemental and limited view of people’s reasons for not having as many children as their bodies can possibly produce.
What many children need today is love, better parenting and a safe and healthy environment to grow up in.
“What many children need today is love, better parenting and a safe and healthy environment to grow up in.”
what many children need is to actually be BORN Asitis, so that they can experience better parenting, and a safe and healthy environment…
1.5 million children in American NEVER get that chance….. 😦
but of course, the position today is that every baby a wanted baby
better dead than born to bad parents eh?
Mary Catherine I am not arguing your position on abortion.
What I am arguing is your negative, judgemental and limited view of people’s reasons for not having as many children as their bodies can possibly produce.
Believe it or not Mary Catherine, I’m her to look for some common ground, without sacrificing what I firmly believe, or asking you to sacrifice what you firmly believe. You have some good points on what our culture tells us children “need.”
I walked alone to kindergarten after the first day. Most children now seem to either take a school bus, even for a mile or two, or every darn day a parent (or nannie) is there in a long line of cars picking them up and dropping them off. I remember when “school is out” was marked by lines of walking children for ten blocks in every direction.
I also remember when a YMCA summer camp cost $10 a week per child, and in today’s money, that would still be well under $100. It wasn’t high tech, but it was fun and healthy. Our family did take vacations — all packed into the car, driving to Canada and down into Vermont and back across PA and Ohio. No, every child doesn’t need Playstation X etc., and I believe keeping a child OFF computers and videos the first five years could be as important as good nutrition during that same period.
If a mother is under social services supervision, she can’t get her kids back until she has a house where each can have their own room, more often than not. How many of us had our own room for our entire childhood???
I have good cause to believe that “most couples” today want more than no children, more than one, some even want more than two. A significant difficulty is that those most willing to have children are having them at fifteen, with no father around, whereas waiting until twenty, or even nineteen, married, would be a big improvement. But you can’t conform people to your preference for how many to have. In the end, each family has to choose for itself.
“What I am arguing is your negative, judgemental and limited view of people’s reasons for not having as many children as their bodies can possibly produce.”
judgmental to you because you have only 2 children
but in many interviews, young couples SAY they do not have the space in their lives for children
young couples are choosing not to have children so they can concentrate on careers, travel and self
in China where the government is trying to persuade young couples to have more than one child, these reasons are also given
in Europe, incentives have not worked
couples are more interested in travel, purchasing material goods and see children as self-limiting.
Those are facts Asitis. Facts. Not my opinion. Nor my judgment. FACTS.
No Mary Catherine, I call your view judgemental because it is. This has nothing to do with how many children I have.
Certainly there are couples who choose not to have children so they can have careers, travel and live their lives more freely.
But you are claiming that people limit the number of children they have for purely selfish, materistic reasons.
That’s a negative, judgemental and limited view Mary Catherine.
“But you are claiming that people limit the number of children they have for purely selfish, materistic reasons.”
sorry it’s a fact as evidenced by many recent studies of both European women and women in Shanghai China.
sorry to burst that bubble….;)
you feel it’s judgmental because you feel that it is ok for women to limit their family for what are essentially selfish reasons – humanistic materialist and consumeristic.
I do not.
I believe post-modern woman has lost her feminine identity and has become masculinized, with great harm done to women, society and to the family
Mary Catherine, there are a lot of good reasons that people have for not wanting to have as many children as their bodies can produce. But you are so adamantly opposed to birth control on religious grounds there is no way that you are going to ever see this.
It remains that your views are negative, limited and judgemental.
Oh, and for the record I am VERY feminine ( just ask my husband!) and see the advances in women’s rights and issues in a very positive light.
I never said anything about my religious beliefs Asitis.
I am making a statement that young women are not interested in having children today.
This statement is supported by recent research that indicates women have a preference for working on their careers, living an easy life with few responsibilities and preserving their physiques.
This has nothing to do with my religious sentiments, whatever they may be. 😉
Perhaps the studies are judgmental? 😉
Asitis,
You’re comments keep ending up in my spam folder. I’ve contacted wordpress about rectifying this. Please bear with me 🙂
“It’s good news because women need to understand who stands for truth, who stands for their best interests. It isn’t the Democrat Party.”
It ain’t the Republican Party, neither. I don’t recall one Republican pro-life politician asking a single question about whether this new health care bill covers oral contraception and I doubt I’ll see it.
Young women aren’t interested in having babies Mary Catherine?
Or do you really mean that young women want to delay their childbearing years and limit the number of children they have? I would agree with that. And they could have good reasons for doing so.
And Mary catherine, there is no point in trying to deny your religious view. You actually did already make it loud and clear:
“It’s a shame that couples place so many limits on God’s generosity.
That’s what OC’s are all about.
Man deciding what it best for himself rather than asking God what HE might want want for them…..”
I am glad that couples who put a priority on expensive vacations over children are not having children. They would be terrible parents. I wouldn’t wish them on any child. Fortunately for the future of the human species, on this somewhat over-crowded planet, there are literally millions of children being born every day to couples who did not make the choice not to have them. A good number of them are actually welcomed joyfully into the family.
I read somewhere that Democrats think abortion is OK, while Republicans think that abortion is OK, but have learned that saying a few words about it gets them many votes. Actually, you can thank the significant number of pro-life Democrats for the fact that abortion will not be covered by any government subsidized medical insurance premiums. I don’t really have a problem with that either.
I would have a problem with excluding contraception, but fortunately that hasn’t arisen. I recognize that abortion is right on the border of what is legitimate for government intervention, manifested in the fact that every state in the union has the authority to prohibit third trimester abortions. We cannot, however, have government setting policy for each and every medicine and procedure that will or will not be covered based on whether some lobby or other does or does not approve.
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