Topic: WorldNetDaily
Garth Kant writes in a March 4 WorldNetDaily article:
They’re the carcinogens you won’t read much about in the establishment media: birth-control pills and abortion.
The evidence linking hormones and breast cancer just keeps pouring in. What kind of hormones? Those found in birth-control pills and those associated with abortions.
The prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported Feb. 27 the rate of metastatic breast cancer in women ages 25 to 39 nearly doubled between 1976 and 2009, from 1.53 to 2.9 per 100,000.
Kant then reports on claims by right-wing groups that blamed the increase on birth control and abortion:
The American Council on Science and Health calls the increase “slight.” But Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, points out there has been no corresponding increase in older women.
Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said it was “utterly stunning” that JAMA lead author Rebecca Johnson’s team called the increased incidence in advanced cancers among young women “small.”
“That’s a nearly doubled increase in the incidence of a disease with a mean five-year fatality rate of 69 percent,” she said. “By contrast, the mean five-year fatality rate among women with breast cancers that have not spread to distant sites is 13.2 percent.”
And what distinguishes the younger women from the older? The sexual revolution, says Orient.
“Young women in huge numbers have taken higher doses of hormones than their menopausal sisters – in birth-control pills,” she said.
In 2005, the World Health Organization classified oral contraceptives as Class-1 carcinogens, one of only about 100 substances found to be “carcinogenic in humans.”
But the JAMA study made no determination of reasons for the increase -- which, in fact, is "small" since what was discovered was an increase of 1.37 cases of breast cancer per 100,000 population.Kant and his right-wingers also fail to acknowledge that the increase might be attributed in part to increased screening.
Kant continued:
Orient said at least 29 studies have shown a significant increase in breast cancer in women who have had an abortion. She said many studies indicate abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer by an average of 30 percent.
Orient says women “at the very least lose the protective effect of the first full-term pregnancy if they abort their first baby.”
She thinks women should be informed about the growing evidence linking abortion and breast cancer. Even if they do have an abortion, she said, they could at least be extra-vigilant and get early screening.
In fact, the National Cancer Institute says that "the evidence overall still does not support early termination of pregnancy as a cause of breast cancer," and the American Cancer Society says that "the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer."
Kant couldn't be bothered to report any of those facts, but he did report someone's baseless speculation that "major research institutes have denied any link between abortion and breast cancer because the issue has been 'politicized.'"
(h/t Wonkette)
