Tag Archives: Breast cancer

Changing Cultures Result In Changing Laws

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During the 1920’s and pretty much through the 1980’s smoking was portrayed as glamorous. From the 1920’s to the 1950’s Hollywood movies collaborated with film studios to place their products on screen, and they even paid movie stars to appear in cigarette advertising campaigns. Cigarette ads showed couples on exotic beaches or exotic tourist locations. The effort was made to associate cigarettes with travel, success, and glamor. In 1966, America began to require warning labels on cigarette packages. In 1970, cigarette advertising was banned from television and radio. In the 1980’s America began to ban smoking on airplanes. At first the ban only applied to smaller planes. In 1988, President Reagan signed a bill that banned smoking on airplanes. Beginning in the 1970’s, there was an effort to de-glamorize smoking. Anti-smoking ads appeared on television showing people in the hospital wasting away from cancer and lung disease. Restaurants set up non-smoking areas (later removed, sending smokers outside). Gradually smokers were deprived of their right to smoke and looked down upon. (I say this as an observer–I never smoked). Advertising and cultural pressure worked–in 1965, 45 percent of Americans were smokers. In 2015, that number was 15.2 percent. There is one small caveat though–in 1915, a nationwide survey  showed that the use of pot has surpassed cigarette smoking for the first time (article here). In 2020, 12.5 percent of Americans smoked. The culture changed, and gradually Americans changed their behavior. I would like to see the same thing happen with abortion now that Roe versus Wade has been overturned.

Because Roe versus Wade has been overturned, each state is allowed to make its own laws on abortion. It will be illegal in some states and abortion up until birth will be legal in other states. It’s time we tell the truth about abortion (just like it was a while before the tobacco companies told the truth about cigarettes). Just as the tobacco industry was a powerful lobby with lots of money to donate to political campaigns, Planned Parenthood (the leading abortion provider in the country), through related organizations donates large amounts of money to political campaigns and funds large amounts of political advertising and other advertising.

Planned Parenthood says that the child is simply a blob of tissue. Science has known for a long time that is not true. Planned Parenthood doesn’t mention the emotional scars many women experience after an abortion. Planned Parenthood doesn’t tell you about the increased risk of breast cancer in women who have had abortions. Planned Parenthood doesn’t tell you that an abortion is like any other medical procedure in that it carries risks. I personally know a number of women who were not able to have children after a legal abortion because of the scarring.

It’s time for the facts about abortion to be publicly shouted so that the culture surrounding abortion can change. I want abortion to be as socially unacceptable as smoking. Crisis Pregnancy Centers need to be supported, and pregnant women in a difficult situation need to get whatever help they need. There needs to be a reasonable alternative to getting an abortion, and the abortion industry needs to go bankrupt.

 

Good News From The Medical Sector

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Bloomberg News is reporting today that a blood test that may be able to detect breast cancer up to five years before symptoms develop could be available by 2025 if development is fully funded, U.K. researchers said. This is wonderful news. Breast cancer can be cured if it is detected early.

The emedicinehealth website includes the following chart:

The article at Bloomberg News reports:

“A blood test for early breast cancer detection would be cost effective, which would be of particular value in low and middle income countries,” Daniyah Alfattani, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham said in a statement. “It would also be an easier screening method to implement compared to current methods, such as mammography.”

About 2.1 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, according to the World Health Organization. It killed an estimated 627,000 women last year, accounting for 15% of all cancer deaths among women.

…“We need to develop and further validate this test,” Alfattani said. “However, these results are encouraging and indicate that it’s possible to detect a signal for early breast cancer. Once we have improved the accuracy of the test, then it opens the possibility of using a simple blood test to improve early detection of the disease.”

The research was presented at the U.K. National Cancer Research Institute cancer conference in Glasgow.

Wow. Wonderful news.

Something American Women Need To Know

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There is a website called Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. On that site is a page dealing with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) dealing with the relationship between abortion and breast cancer.

Here is an example of two of the questions and answers:

1. How many breast cancer risks are associated with abortion and what are those risks?

 Two breast cancer risks are associated with abortion.  All experts agree that increased childbearing, starting at a younger age, and increased duration of breastfeeding significantly reduce breast cancer risk. Cancer fundraising businesses recognize that the following factors raise a woman’s risk for breast cancer: 1) Childlessness; 2) Small family size; 3) Little or no breastfeeding; and 4) Having a late first full term pregnancy.

 There can be no question that abortion contributes to the breast cancer rates of all nations where the procedure is accessible.  Few experts, however, possess either the intellectual honesty or the political courage to acknowledge that abortion has anything to do with the loss of the protective effect – unless, of course, they are compelled to testify under oath.

 Even an expert witness for the Center for Reproductive Rights, Dr. Lynn Rosenberg of Boston Medical School, was compelled to agree with this medical fact while under oath: “A woman who finds herself pregnant at age 15 will have a higher breast cancer risk if she chooses to abort that pregnancy than if she carries the pregnancy to term, correct?”

Scientists debate only one of the breast cancer risks associated with abortion – the question of an independent link.  In other words, does an abortion leave a woman with more cancer vulnerable breast lobules than she had before she became pregnant?

2) How many medical organizations acknowledge that abortion is independently linked to breast cancer and what is the evidence that supports this effect?

 As of October, 2006, eight medical organizations acknowledge that abortion increases a woman’s risk in this way.  Most of the recent epidemiological research examines only the debated risk – the effect of the independent link.  Most of the recent research omits the effect of the first risk (the loss of the protective effect of childbearing) because it is already accepted as a well-established fact in the medical literature. 

 An overwhelming majority of the epidemiological studies support an independent link.  Seventy epidemiological studies dating from 1957 have been conducted, and approximately 80% report a correlation between having an abortion and increased breast cancer risk.  Animal research and considerable biological evidence also support a link. Even the most zealous opponents of the abortion-cancer link agree that the biological reasons for it are physiologically correct.  No scientist has ever refuted or even challenged the biological explanation.

 Considering the sheer extent of the evidence that has accumulated over the last half-century, why didn’t the cancer fundraising at least warn women about the existence of this research, as well as the fact that abortion would result in the loss of the protective effect of childbearing?

Shouldn’t this information be part of the discussion about women’s healthcare?

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Unintended Consequences Of Changes In Food And Drug Administration Policies

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The American Spectator reported today that there is a shortage of essential cancer drugs due to some changes in policy at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The article reports:

The shortfall is the result of stricter FDA regulation, government price controls on already discounted but complex drugs, and policies that discourage the use of new medications. Companies, facing lower prices, tighter regulation and increasing government control over what drugs will be used and when, are exiting the U.S. market and investing in product development in China and India where, sadly, it is easier and cheaper to produce next-generation medicines.

As usual, government interference in the free marked is having a negative impact on the lives of Americans.

The article further points out::

Provenge, the first cancer vaccine, stalled at the FDA for years. Once approved, it faced 18 months of additional delay while the Obama administration figured out whether to pay for it. The gauntlet cancer patients face with Provenge is being extended to everyone waiting for a medical breakthrough under Obamacare. Before a medical innovation can be used or paid for, the government will now demand additional research demonstrating that a new product will be more effective and cheaper than existing technologies. Since most new products come from small start-ups with limited cash, such a requirement means life-saving innovations will not be available at all.

There will always be some risk associated with a new drug, but is it better to let people die than to take a reasonable risk?

This is the same government that decided that in order to save money, women under the age of fifty should not get mammograms. Since breast cancer can occur at any time and tends to be more aggressive in women in their thirties, this is the kind of decision that will result in women dying. I know a number of women who had breast cancer in their thirties and forties. They would never have discovered the cancer in time if the government policies of no mammograms until age fifty had been in effect.

Let the government do government things and the medical community do medical things. All Americans are negatively impacted when the government attempts to micromanage healthcare.

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