Last week, the National Catholic Register published an article by Judy Roberts discussing the moral dilemma that the breast cancer fundraising organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is facing. 1
The article illustrates that Komen's moral problems are really two-fold. They arise from Komen's complete surrender to the unbending demands of secular society's politically correct, civil religion which insists the sexual revolution must continue, regardless of the costs to human life.
In late January of 2012, when Komen decided it would stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood, it folded within only three days after the abortion giant exercised its political muscle by subjecting the charity to its bully tactics. 2
The other half of Komen's (and other cancer groups') moral deficiency has to do with its failure to warn women on a timely basis about breast cancer risks associated with induced abortion and use of steroids, i.e. the birth control pill - also known as combined (estrogen plus progestin) oral contraceptives - and combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) used for menopausal symptoms.
The so-called charity denies the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link, although delayed first full term pregnancy, small family size, childlessness and little or no breastfeeding are listed as accepted risk factors for the disease in standard medical texts. There is nothing charitable about misleading women about deadly health risks, so we hate to call Komen a charity.
Two lists of epidemiological studies on the ABC link are available on our website, but not on Komen's website. To give our readers a sense of the impact the link the link is expected to have on women, our science adviser, Professor Joel Brind (Baruch College, City University of New York) reported to us in June, 2014 that:
"Since 2007, there have been published, for example, 17 studies in Asia in addition to those 36 Chinese studies summarized by (Dr. Yubei Huang and his colleagues in 2013). All 17 show increased risk, one as high as 20-fold, with an average risk increase exceeding fourfold. Just the recent data alone is totally compelling.... At this rate, the abortion-breast cancer link will kill millions in India and China alone. " (emphasis added)
Evidence supporting a link between the pill and breast cancer dates from at least 1975 when Fasal and Paffenbarger reported that users of the pill for 2-4 years significantly increased their breast cancer risk by 1.9 times. If they were still using the pill when they entered the study, the 2-4 year users' risk elevation climbed to 2.5-fold. 3
Lees' team reported in 1978 that recent users of the pill with a prior breast biopsy increased their risk by five times; but among women with a prior breast biopsy who'd used the pill for more than five years, their risk increased nine-fold. 4
Concerns about a pill-breast cancer link were discussed in the British Medical Journal as early as 1964 when a physician, JJ. Shipman, wrote a letter to the journal about patients who'd been taking the pill and later developed the disease. 5 Another correspondent responded in his letter that health authorities had been concerned about a possible connection between use of estrogens and breast cancer since approximately 1939. 6
Evidence for the HRT-breast cancer link dates from 1987 when Hunt's team found that "Breast cancer incidence was also significantly increased" by 1.59 times in users of menopausal therapy. 7
Mills' team reported in a 1989 study for the journal, Cancer , a statistically significant 1.69-fold risk increase among HRT users. 8
In their 1988 study published in the European Journal of Cancer and Clinical Oncology , esteemed scientists T.J. Key and M.C. Pike explained that women reduce their breast cancer risk when they go into menopause at a young age. That happens because the ovaries decrease their production of estrogen and progesterone. 9 These are hormones known to stimulate the division of breast cells. The authors argued that:
"The protective effect of early menopause shows that ovarian hormones increase the risk of breast cancer: it is likely that this is because they stimulate breast cell division."[9]
So it made good biological sense that HRT use would raise breast cancer risk. When physicians prescribed HRT to women who'd entered menopause at a young age, they deprived their patients of the risk-reducing effect of early menopause.
Nevertheless, women only learned of the breast cancer risk associated with the use of HRT accidentally when a story broke in the national news in 2002 that the Women's Health Initiative study had been stopped prematurely because study subjects using HRT were dying of heart attacks and strokes. 10
That's when journalists learned about a 26% increased risk of invasive breast cancer associated with use of HRT. Cancer "charities" weren't the first to reveal that simple, but deadly, fact that scientists had known for years. The national press did.
Nearly one-half of all HRT consumers in the U.S. stopped using those menopausal hormones and breast cancer incidence declined markedly within a year. Scientists reported a 7% decline in breast cancer rates for 2003. 11
Once HRT "fell," the pill necessarily had to "fall" as well - although that was a bitter pill for the sexual revolution's devotees to swallow. Both include the same type of drugs, but the pill contains a larger dose. Therefore, cancer "charities" were forced to acknowledge the pill as a risk factor on their websites, although they did so quietly, without the same fanfare associated with the news about HRT; and they downplayed the risk.
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1 "Susan G. Komen's moral dilemma," by Judy Roberts, National Catholic Reporter , October 5, 2014. Available at: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/susan-g.-komens-moral-dilemma/ . [ Back ]
2 "Did Komen reverse its position to stop funding Planned Parenthood?" by Karen Malec, newsletter, Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. February 3, 2012. Available at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/120203.htm . [ Back ]
3 Fasal E, Paffenbarger RS Jr. Oral contraceptives as related to cancer and benign lesions of the breast. J Natl Cancer Inst 1975;55(4):767-773. [ Back ]
4 Lees AW, Burns PE, Grace M. Oral contraceptives and breast disease in premenopausal Northern Albertan women. Int J Cancer 1978;22(6):700-707. [ Back ]
5 Shipman JJ. Oral contraceptives and breast cancer. Br Med J 1964;2(5409):629. [ Back ]
6 Stoll BA, Oral contraceptives and breast cancer. Br Med J 1964;2(5413):875. [ Back ]
7 Hunt K, Vessey M, McPherson K, Coleman M. Long-term surveillance of mortality and cancer incidence in women receiving hormone replacement therapy. Br J Obstet Gynaecol 1987;94(7):620-635. [ Back ]
8 Mills PK, Beeson WL, Phillips RL, Fraser GE. Prospective study of exogenous hormone use and breast cancer in Seventh-day Adventists. Cancer 1989;64(3):591-597. [ Back ]
9 Key TJ, Pike MC. The role of oestrogens and progestagens in the epidemiology and prevention of breast cancer. Eur J Cancer Clin Oncol 1988;24(1):29-43. [ Back ]
10 Writing group for the Women's Health Initiative Investigators. Risks and benefits of estrogen plus progestin in healthy postmenopausal women. Principal Results from the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA 2002;288(3):321-333. [ Back ]
11 Schneider AP, Zainer CM, Kubat CK, Mullen NK, Windisch AK. The breast cancer epidemic: 10 facts. The Linacre Quarterly 2014;81(3):244-277. Available at: http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1179/2050854914Y.0000000027 . [ Back ]