Spotlight: Jenn Giroux - Fighting the Culture of the Pill

 

For Jenn Giroux, celebrating large families is part of an effort to save parents from the regret they might experience later in life in the absence of children that might have been - had it not been for the pill.

By Kathleen Gilbert

CINCINNATI, Ohio, October 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Most people who run into Jenn Giroux probably wouldn't guess that she is mother to nine children.

 A warm, youthful registered nurse with an energetic smile, Giroux, 48, is a remarkable intersection of proud mother and dynamic pro-life leader. As executive director of HLI America, she counters the agenda of the likes of abortion giant Planned Parenthood; however, abortion is not the end of the story for Giroux. As founder of the Association of Large Families (AFLA), she's also dedicated to reaching out to "planned parents," a much larger group of people who are heir to the idea that having more than a few children is not only burdensome, but even dangerous and unnatural.

This mentality, she said in a telephone interview with LifeSiteNews.com, is more at the root of our culture's problem than even the abortion industry – and it is a root cause that conservatives need to come to terms with.

 "We're really taking on the 'planned parenthood' mentality ... that less children is better," said Giroux.

 A nurse with 24 years' experience, she said that she was often struck during her time in the health care industry by women's negative attitude when asked whether they were pregnant. "It reflected how America has really lost sight of our greatest resource, which is our children," she said. Giroux blames the mentality that blossomed in the 1960s and 70s that says that families should be limited to allow women to pursue careers.

The idea has penetrated so deeply that doctors now even suggest that having a large family, far from the natural course of married life, is a risk to a woman's health. "Your doctors nowadays are going to tell you, 'Don't have any more than two, your body can't take it. You don't want to do that, take the Pill,'" she said. "I hear this consistently."

 The Silent Mourning

 However, said the nurse, she has also seen the other end of the journey - the one no one talks about.

 "I discovered in my experience that ... women over fifty expressed time and time again to me their post-contraceptive regret," said Giroux. "And what they're realizing now is that they had their two children, they put them in daycare, and their children are now grown and moved away, and they wish they had more children - or they sincerely mourn and regret the children they willingly prevented."

Parents later in life not only suffer remorse, she said, but they and their families often end up experiencing the loss quite tangibly. "I witnessed only children at the bedside of their dying parents with no support around them from siblings, because they don't exist," she said. She noted also the "terrible, burning regret" and "mourning" she's seen from sterilized individuals, who can be left barren even after reversing the procedure.

While she is dedicated to exposing the tragic effects of smothering natural fertility, Giroux said she and former Human Life International President, Rev. Tom Euteneuer, came up with AFLA to show the positive "flip side" of that concern. "It is an effort to show people the beauty of having large families," she said.

Modern society, she said, has been left in the dark about what large families are really like. When large families are mentioned in the national media, "it is usually to mock them" - but in truth, she notes, large families are the "physical and spiritual backbone of America."

 ALFA exists "not to judge people at all," she said, "but more to make sure that our daughters and granddaughters do not buy into the same lies that were fed to women our age."

 "What we really basically are asking is that families that are open to God's plan for marriage, love and children and accepting the gifts he sends their family instead of limiting their families through artificial means."

"The Catholic Issue"

According to Giroux, the fight to get their message out has not exactly been easy.

 "I have been called a lunatic more times than I care to remember," she said, relating struggles she has had to find a foothold even among top conservative and pro-life circles.

 Despite some discouraging results, Giroux said she feels the movement is making progress against one of the biggest impediments: the idea that opposing contraceptives is just a "Catholic issue." More and more research, she says, is pointing to the devastating repercussions of the contraceptive culture on women's health.

Giroux has teamed up with Angela Lanfranchi, M.D. of the Breast Cancer Institute to expose the link between contraceptive use and breast cancer. For example, she says research has suggested women on the Pill within five years of having their first baby are at 50% increased risk for breast cancer.

"You don't always get people who want to hear the spiritual side," said Giroux. She pointed out that women in their 30s have begun succumbing to breast cancer even though it used to be "a post-menopausal woman's disease" - a change that she said is "directly tied to hormonal contraception and abortion." "The pathophysiological development of the breast cancer tissue ... has nothing to do with anybody's beliefs."

"It is time for the pro-life movement to wake up and be bold enough to say, you know what, you're damaging our children, you're damaging women, and we're not going to stand for it anymore," she said. "It's not a Catholic issue anymore, it's a women's health issue now."

In addition to the emergency contraceptive known as Plan B, which pro-lifers have constantly warned can kill a newly-conceived embryo, Giroux said that even the hormonal birth control pill may inadvertently be causing the death of countless tiny lives. She notes that scientists have found that during in-vitro fertilization, embryos often died after they could not receive nutrients from a uterine lining thinned by regular hormonal contraceptive use.

One day, she said, public opinion will recognize what damage the pill has done to women both physically and spiritually - a day she thinks is close at hand. She compared the contraceptive industry to the cigarette industry, which was also once virtually free of regulation.

"It took six decades to finally have the lawsuits and the legal liabilities catch up to the sales of cigarettes," she said. "This is now the sixth decade of pill use. I believe this is the decade the pill and hormonal contraceptives, and the physical damage it has done to women's health, is going to catch up also with the billions of dollars that are made in profit."

 Click here to visit AFLA's Web site, FourorMore.org. URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100109.htm

 


Comments (Page 2)
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on Oct 07, 2010

DOOMBRINGER90

So tell me, do you all really want to hit the carrying capacity of the planet in your life time (if we haven't already hit it)?

The "carrying capacity" of the earth is the bedrock scare perpetuated by the population control movement.  For 25 or 30 years now, we've been hearing and teaching that we have a world problem, an environmental crisis of horrific proportion, created by world over population. And evidently you bought into it.

But where is the solid evidence that supports the United Nation's monolithic dogma that a "population bomb" threatens the life of all humanity and exploits the earth?

I think the population controller's forecasts of harm from population growth have been proven groundless.

.......................

Of course if you want to have load of kids I don't care, but I suggest looking at india and china for why it's a bad idea.

  As far as population growth polluting the environment, causing poverty, famine, etc., in 2001, the UN reported that overall, "population growth appears to be much less important as a driving force" than "economic growth and technology". On poverty, British scholar Robert Whelan from Family of the AMericas, wrote, 

"The idea that population growth is responsible for poverty, famines, and unemployment has now been so discreditied among honest scholars as to be hardly tenable....Poverty and prosperity are the results of economic structures and are not caused by high or low birth rates. For example, Bangladesh has a population density of over 600 people per square kilometer. But then Hong Kong has about 5000 people p/s/k and is a great center of wealth creation. So why is Bangladesh poor while Hong Kong is rich? It can't be overpopulation.

In developed countries with social security plans, 5 to 6 young workers are needed to support each retiree. In poorer countries and those without government retirement plans, including Communist ones like China, the only social security program is to have enough children to support you in your old age.

The report states famine can come when "people have inadequate physical and or economic access to food as a result of poverty, political instability, economic inefficiency, and social inequality, " not just becasue there are too many people.

Human rights do not exist in Communist China. Since 1979, The United Nations Population Fund, has supported the one-child policy in China. Since 1998, documentation from within China proves Chinese quota driven family planning programs are still being carried out by means of a variety of coercive measures such as crippling fines, arrest and imprisonment of family members, destruction of property, and of bodily coercion of IUD insertions, forced sterilization and abortion.

The notion that people are somehow social economic nuisances is a pernicious one, predisposing governments to treat their own citizens as a form of pestilence. Instead of trying to lift their poor out of poverty, governments instead try to reduce their numbers. Authentic economic development is neglected, human rights abuses abound, and everyone's freedoms are put at risk." ....Steven W. Mosher, President of Population Research Institute.

And you must know the coercive population control policy is not limited to China. Becasue of disengenuous radical feminism, almost everywhere in the world women and young girls, particularly poor ones, are at grave rish of coercive population programs. These women and young girls are given artificial birth control products and being sterilized and they are suffering and devestated from the effects of these.

on Oct 07, 2010

GoaFan77

Oh brother...

I agree with doom bringer, any risks contraceptives pose is more than mitigated by the slowed population growth in areas were they are used.

So you are arguing that the "ends justify the means"? I'm in the camp that says "No way". We must treasure people, not living space as our most important resource.

When man rejects Almighty God and His laws and decides for himself who lives and dies, the consequences are fatal. God is merciful, but Mother Nature is not. Death of babies means death of cultures and death of nations. Today, demographic reports show that the "overpopulation" scare is over. Nations see their populations declining, some dying becasue they are at below replacement fertility level. It's under population, not over population that is the dilemna facing the world today. 83 countries are thought to be below replacement fertility level.

  

I hate to say it, but breast cancer is the lesser evil compared to the entire world starving.

The entire world starving? Again, this scare comes from population controllers, but where is the evidence that the world is running out of resources and we're going to plunge into famine?

  

 

 

 

on Oct 07, 2010

The details are below....but if a woman isn't HER2+,

Wow. You are amazingly good at how much you already know about all these things.

These studies are very good and necessary and you'll be a very valuable contributor. Tova, I pray that God blesses you with strength and perseverance as you work through this time of your life.   

 

on Oct 07, 2010

 

Tova, I pray that God blesses you with strength and perseverance as you work through this time of your life.

Thank you Lula.  I appreciate your prayers very much.  And FYI it is mutual. 

on Oct 07, 2010

See lula, this is why ignoring science is bad for you. I have never said in any of my posts that hitting the carrying capacity is a "bad thing". But when you do hit it, if you do not have any natural predators you have to reduce the birth rate to roughly match the death rate. Keep in mind that every herbivorous terrestrial life form's carrying capacity is dependent on every other lifeform in the area. If you run out of plants the herbivores die off, resulting in a drastic decrease in population for omnivores and carnivores. With the majority of the meat eaters gone, the herbivores make a drastic uptick finishing off the last of the plantlife, resulting in the final dieoff of all terrestrial life. Large aquatic life would probably die off shortly after the initial herbivore die off, as the only source of food that still increases energy directly from the sun in a complete food chain would be fish and whales, so humans will hunt them to extinction to supplement wolves and what have you. eventually life will re-evolve from the seas(or get plopped back down by the magic invisible floating energy being in the sky)

once we hit the carrying capacity there's only a few options to ensure the survival of humanity, and given the beliefs I pick up from your posts, you won't like any of them.

1) colonize space(which opens up a whole new can of worms with either terraformation or geneticly engineering humans and food animals to survive in a non earth environment)

2) kill all terrestrial animals and convert all of humanaty to veganism(even then we'll still need one of the other options)

3) convert all of humanity to semi cannibalism(same note as option 2)

4) wage a series of wars(far more likely given the mindset of most people, And will likely have the result of reducing the carrying capacity of the planet)

5) ignore the anti-GM nutjobs and heavily modify the food supply for higher yields on poorer soil(at least until option 1 is economicly viable)

 The idea that population growth is responsible for poverty, famines, and unemployment has now been so discreditied among honest scholars as to be hardly tenable....Poverty and prosperity are the results of economic structures and are not caused by high or low birth rates.

Poverty is also directly caused by saturating the job market which having tons of people does.

For example, Bangladesh has a population density of over 600 people per square kilometer. But then Hong Kong has about 5000 people p/s/k and is a great center of wealth creation. So why is Bangladesh poor while Hong Kong is rich?

On the other hand, can you explain how a nation that formed 40 years ago in what is arguably the backwater of India can possibly be compared to a port town that has existed in one of the richer nations for over 170? Additionally there is a critical mass of people and natural resources required to begin a buildup of economy. As it is Bangladesh is part of the "next eleven", which means that their economy is one that may become a major player in the later 21st century.

If you take Hong Kong and add it to the rest of mainland china (which you really should do if you're going to compare to another country) you find out that the population density is a tenth that of Bangladesh, but I suppose that if you didn't take the highest richer population density in the world and compare it to one of the poorer population densities in the world you couldnt make your point. By the logic used in this bit, the US should be a third world country because our population density is about 1/100th the density of Hong Kong.

 Instead of trying to lift their poor out of poverty, governments instead try to reduce their numbers.
Did this make any sense at all to you when you copied it? One would assume that lifting the poor out of poverty would reduce their numbers, but this is wacky twisted logic world where uplifting the poor doesn't make less poor people...

We must treasure people, not living space as our most important resource.

Sure treasuring people is all well and good, and I don't really care about living space, but tell me oh mighty master of twisted logic, when every square inch of the livable surface of the world is filled with a person and their house, where we are getting our food from? You've already spoken out against genetic engineering so no high yield crops to be planted in what little garden space you might be able to find on the roof of your building, and there is no meat anymore because meat animals take up far more low yield crops and space than is available, and the fish have all been fished to death to attempt to support the population. Or are we just going to all be eating soylent green?

 but where is the evidence that the world is running out of resources and we're going to plunge into famine?
Where is the evidence that the world has infinite resources? As you said earlier
people have inadequate physical and or economic access to food as a result of poverty, political instability, economic inefficiency, and social inequality
What happens when more people want the same amount of food? The price of food goes up, reducing the number of people who can buy that food, reducing the number of people who can eat, increasing the number of starvation deaths. and as I said earlier, eventually we will hit the maximum yield for non and lightly GM food. Hell, as it is, lightly GM food is the only reason the planet has the ability to hold all 7 billion of us.

on Oct 08, 2010

once we hit the carrying capacity there's only a few options to ensure the survival of humanity, and given the beliefs I pick up from your posts, you won't like any of them.

1) colonize space(which opens up a whole new can of worms with either terraformation or geneticly engineering humans and food animals to survive in a non earth environment)

2) kill all terrestrial animals and convert all of humanaty to veganism(even then we'll still need one of the other options)

3) convert all of humanity to semi cannibalism(same note as option 2)

4) wage a series of wars(far more likely given the mindset of most people, And will likely have the result of reducing the carrying capacity of the planet)

5) ignore the anti-GM nutjobs and heavily modify the food supply for higher yields on poorer soil(at least until option 1 is economicly viable)

There is a little deception there.  You are asking her to pick one.  The truth is that no one picks one.  With the exception of technical ones (that only the advancement of science can bring about), the dynamics of animal life takes care of the rest.  It does not have to be some master plan (as many in the green and eugenics movement advocate). Indeed, even the technical ones are part of the dynamics as the incessant quest for knowledge drives man to overcome those technical limitations.

There is a popular misconception that man is destroying nature.  The error is that man is not a part of nature.  Man is indeed a very integral part of nature and bound by its laws.  The constant drumbeat of doom and gloom that has been going on since the turn of the 19th century about the inevitable saturation of man upon the planet has never occurred because of that fallacy.  it will not occur, not due to any massive planning, but due to nature itself.

The population of the planet today far outstrips the carrying capacity of the planet 100 years ago.  The difference is in what nature gave man to compete with the other animals.  We do not have speed, strength, claws, teeth, horns, scales, leathery or bony carapaces.  Indeed, homosapiens have nothing in which to compete with other life on this planet except one thing.  Their brains.  And it is that brain that has not only increased the carrying capacity of the planet far beyond what it was 100 years ago, but will continue to do so far into the future.

It is not about "unlimited" but about maximizing the capacity at the limits, which has been occurring since man began walking erect.  And when man nears or meets the carrying capacity of the planet in one section, mother nature - of which man is a part - compensates.

There were mass starvations in the past when the population was much smaller.  Man had not developed the means to adequately increase the carrying capacity in those areas yet.

The abomination of man is that when he thinks himself an enemy of or outside of nature, that he then decides to take matters into his own hands and correct problems that do not exist.  or just for evil sport and gain, he wars.  But both supposed solutions are an anathema to nature (and she retaliates in kind).

Western society has ceased to grow in numbers.  The dynamics of nature has made the animals desire fulfillment over procreation.  With the exception of China (which was ineffective and counter productive), there has been no mass plan by the animal man to control that.  it naturally occurred.  As it will in all areas of the planet once the fight for subsistence ends.  But that can only happen when wars end (which is kind of a revenge of nature on man as well) and eugenicists/malthusians fulfill their destiny with their own destruction.

on Oct 08, 2010

DoomBringer90

So tell me, do you all really want to hit the carrying capacity of the planet in your life time (if we haven't already hit it)? If so, do you support returning to the pre industrial age in order to ensure enough food?

See lula, this is why ignoring science is bad for you.

 Was the "carrying capacity", overpopulation scare based on true science? If so, answer my question:

But where is the solid evidence that supports the United Nation's monolithic dogma that a "population bomb" threatens the life of all humanity and exploits the earth?

I say no way.  I don't believe the overpopulation "carrying capacity" of the earth argument for a New York minute. Social scientists decided years ago the world would suffocate from its own people. They told us we would run out of water, food and natural resources...that we're heading for certain cataclysm..if we didn't reach "zero population" growth, we'd face extinction!  

I'll repeat: the population controller's forecasts of harm from population growth have been proven groundless. They never really made their case.

How does the UN know how many people the world can hold? It seems to me that the world still has plenty of empty space.  

 

 

on Oct 09, 2010

I have never said in any of my posts that hitting the carrying capacity is a "bad thing".

Then why the question:

So tell me, do you all really want to hit the carrying capacity of the planet in your life time (if we haven't already hit it)? If so, do you support returning to the pre industrial age in order to ensure enough food? ..............................
Of course if you want to have load of kids I don't care, but I suggest looking at india and china for why it's a bad idea.

You are drinking the population controller's kool aid when in reality it's better to heed the population implosion.

Do you think that the authoritarian nature of population control is a good thing? 

on Oct 09, 2010

once we hit the carrying capacity there's only a few options to ensure the survival of humanity, and given the beliefs I pick up from your posts, you won't like any of them.

1) colonize space(which opens up a whole new can of worms with either terraformation or geneticly engineering humans and food animals to survive in a non earth environment)

2) kill all terrestrial animals and convert all of humanaty to veganism(even then we'll still need one of the other options)

3) convert all of humanity to semi cannibalism(same note as option 2)

4) wage a series of wars(far more likely given the mindset of most people, And will likely have the result of reducing the carrying capacity of the planet)

5) ignore the anti-GM nutjobs and heavily modify the food supply for higher yields on poorer soil(at least until option 1 is economicly viable)

Knock, knock, we aren't going to hit the so called "carrying capacity". The application of the deeply flawed overpopulation theories of Thomas Malthus, through Darwin, eugenicist Francis Galton, the extremely racist Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, the United Nations and its organizations and foundations, have done at least 83 countries in. They desired declining populations and through the so called "reproductive rights" approach, they got the mess they desired. Contraception, unfettered access to abortion and sterilization have made fertility rates fallen so low that a wholly new world scare is developing....the population implosion.

on Oct 09, 2010

DRGUY

It is not about "unlimited" but about maximizing the capacity at the limits, which has been occurring since man began walking erect. And when man nears or meets the carrying capacity of the planet in one section, mother nature - of which man is a part - compensates.

Exactly.

Thomas Malthus' dismal theorem which I call the overpopulation myth was that growth in human numbers would out run food supply.

When in truth, human beings are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. Every year we set new records in grain production.

There is enough food being produced for everyone on the planet. Get rid of economic and political mismanagement and evil human activity like terrorists stealing food and aid that's meant for the poor and people's well being will be improved.

    

on Oct 25, 2010

awesome post

on Nov 20, 2010

 Finally, some exposure to the truth of the pill's devastating social and medical reupercussions. I've highlighted what I what I found most interesting.

Experts to expose true legacy of 50 years of the pill

 

By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the hormonal birth control pill celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, experts in the medical, ethical, and legal fields are coming together to challenge Congress and the country to face mounting evidence of the drug's devastating social and medical repercussions.

A conference hosted by Human Life International (HLI) America entitled 50 Years of 'The Pill' in America: A Comprehensive Analysis,” to be held in the Hyatt Regency Washington in the nation's capital on December 3, will host speakers talking about various aspects of contraceptive use. 

The conference is advertised as a series of "analyses of how America has changed demographically, legally, socially, politically, culturally and ethically because of 'The Pill.'"

Jenn Giroux, executive director of HLI America, told LifeSiteNews.com that the conference was a timely response to the mainstream media's one-sided representation of a drug that has deeply altered the face of American society.

At the event bioethics expert Dr. Theresa Deisher will speak on the ethical slippery slope created by the pill, while breast cancer surgeon Dr. Angela Lanfranchi will outline the alarming correspondence of pill use and the increasing prevalence of breast cancer in younger women. Former Kansas attorney general Phill Kline, known for his work investigating the practice of late-term abortionist George Tiller, will discuss the possible legal ramifications of administering the birth control pill to minors, a large percentage of whom statistics have shown to be victims of sexual abuse by older men.

Other speakers include Prof. Janet Smith, Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary; Dr. John Bruchalski, founder of the Tepeyac Family Center; Jennifer Lahl, founder and president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, and Patricia Bainbridge, author and Chairman of the Board of Human Life International.

Now that so much information on the drug has become available, said Giroux, she expressed a conviction that "the next 50 years of the birth control is a whole different story than the first 50 years."

"The World Health Organization classified the pill as a class a-1 carcinogen in the same category as asbestos and cigarettes," she said. "If that's true, why are we allowing these young 12 year olds to be put on this in the name of cramps and in the name of acne [treatment]?"

Leaders will also host a press conference calling for congressional hearings into the drug's detrimental effects. "It's time to drive hormonal birth control ads off of TV in the name of women's health," said Giroux.

Giroux also called upon other pro-life and conservative leaders to step up to the fight against the birth control pill. "It's no longer a Catholic issue. It's a women's health issue. These health issues visit women of all faiths," she said. "We have got to be strong in the defense of w omen's health and not be afraid to take this on."

To register for the conference click here.

 URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/nov/10111910.html

on Nov 22, 2010

thanks for the update Lula. 

on Jul 23, 2011

I was doing some more research and came across two more articles from 2006. Very Interesting indeed. 

 

 

The Pill: “the largest unregulated human trial that’s ever been conducted”
Birth Control Pill Link to Breast Cancer

 

By Terry Vanderheyden

CHICAGO, March 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A world leader in cancer causes and prevention has warned that the so-called birth control pill is “the largest unregulated human trial that’s ever been conducted.”

Dr. Sam Epstein, author of Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, told the CBC’s Marketplace that exposure to the hormones estrogen and progestin, as found in the pill, increase breast cancer risk.

Marketplace author Wendy Mesley, herself a breast cancer survivor, explained that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer last year re-classified hormonal contraceptives as carcinogenic to humans.

Dr. Chris Kahlenborn, M.D. demonstrated that a woman who takes birth control pills before her first child is born has at least a 40 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer and a woman who has taken the pill for four or more years prior to the birth of her first child has a 72 percent risk factor in developing breast cancer. Dr. Kahlenborn’s book, “Breast cancer: Its link to abortion and the birth control pill,” published by One More Soul, is based on six years of study and a meticulous analysis of hundreds of scientific papers and other sources.

A European study, which looked at 103,000 women aged between 30 and 49 in Norway and Sweden found the risk of developing breast cancer rose by 26% for women who had taken the pill over those who had never used it. Moreover, women who had used the pill for long periods of time increased their risk of breast cancer by 58%. The study also found that women over 45 still using the pill had an increased risk of 144%.

The British Medical Journal revealed that the pill increases a woman’s risk of developing cerebrovascular disease by 1.9 times while increasing the tendency to cervical cancer by 2.5 times. The 25 year follow-up study with 46,000 British women also noted that the enhanced risk of death lasts for 10 years after women have stopped taking the pill.




on Jul 23, 2011
     


Use with CAUTION
   ANDREA MROZEK


Pink ribbons are well and good. But why aren't people talking about the link between the pill and breast cancer?

It’s hard not to notice that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. From pink ribbons to pink running shorts to pink hockey sticks, the campaign is on.

“This October,” reads one pink Web ad, “be a friend.” Vague advice to be sure, and women are right to wonder what precisely is the nature of the awareness being raised. For instance: Is it wrong to leave the light on at night? Are there risks to living on a farm? Both are questions posed by recent cancer research, which has examined possible links between breast cancer and myriad risk factors. Through it all, however, there’s one comparatively solid link to breast cancer that goes unmentioned. It’s the link between breast cancer and the birth control pill.

Eighty-four per cent of Canadian women have taken the Pill at some point, but few of those are aware that the Pill was classified as a “group-one carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2005. Far fewer still are likely aware of a new meta-analysis on the link between breast cancer and the Pill, published this month by the Mayo Clinic, a U.S.-based medical practice operated by the Mayo Foundation, a non-profit organization.

The lead author, Dr. Chris Kahlenborn, focused on younger, premenopausal women who had been on the Pill prior to having their first baby. The results: Twenty-one of 23 studies indicate a link between the Pill and breast cancer. Overall, they point to an astounding 44% increased risk of developing breast cancer for young women on the Pill before having their first child.

For 20 years, a study here, or a study there, has shown there could be a link between the Pill and breast cancer. The gold standard of Pill research, however, remains a 1996 Oxford study, which said the Pill causes a small increased risk of breast cancer, but after 10 years that risk vanishes. Dr. Kahlenborn’s goal was to improve on the Oxford study.


Why are his conclusions being reported on the back pages — even as breast cancer “awareness” has otherwise become an activist and media obsession? Perhaps it is because the Pill has long been the darling of feminists — a vertiable icon of female empowerment. In some circles, suggesting the Pill might kill you is seen as tantamount to issuing a press release that women belong in the kitchen. Pharmaceutical companies, too, have a vested interest in maintaining the Pill’s clean bill of health: Half of the population can be on it for decades.

Queen’s University professor Samantha King said in an interview with Maclean’s earlier this month that we weren’t asking “the hard questions about whether we’re spending [breast cancer research money] in the right way.” She went on to point out that “incidence rates have remained stubbornly high … A woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer was one in 22 in the 1940s, but by 2004, it was one in seven.”

Ms. King wasn’t discussing the Pill per se. But given the numbers she cites, the subject should be impossible to avoid.

The amount of evidence already available is a trumpet call for further research, something like the conclusive Women’s Health Initiative study dedicated to examining hormone replacement therapy, whose results made the front pages recently. Until then, young women seeking birth control should be told of the 44% increased risk in order to make their own decisions.

There’s always the risk of this information being misconstrued as an attack on women’s rights. But the risks of suppressing information and not discussing this link are much, much higher. Unvarnished honesty will do a lot more to protect women’s health than this month’s politically correct flurry of pink.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Andrea Mrozek, "Use with CAUTION." National Post, (Canada) October 20, 2006.

Reprinted with permission of the National Post.

THE AUTHOR

Andrea Mrozek is Manager of Research and Communications at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

Copyright © 2006 National Post

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