UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE

May 11, 2006 
Press Statement
Angela Lanfranchi MD FACS, Breast Cancer Prevention Institute
Ottawa, Canada
The Abortion Breast Cancer Link: The Unintended Consequence of the Sexual Revolution and Women’s Liberation

In the last 20 years as a practicing breast cancer surgeon, I have diagnosed and treated ever increasing numbers of women, especially young women, with breast cancer.

In the last 30 years since my medical school graduation, there has been a dramatic 40% increase in the incidence of breast cancer. It is the only major cancer in the US which has continued to increase.

Last year, according to the National Cancer Institute, the cumulative lifetime risk of breast cancer in America is now 1 in 7 women, up from 1 in 12 just 30 years ago.

It is the women of my age group, the Roe v Wade generation, that accounts for most of this increase.

The dramatic lifestyle changes brought about by the sexual revolution and the Women’s Liberation Movement are largely responsible for the rampant breast cancer we see today. As a participant in these movements, I can speak of them first hand.

The foundation of both movements was complete reproductive control. Without it women could not enjoy the same sexual license as men. But more importantly, without it women would not be trained for corporate leadership due to the fear of pregnancy and loss of productivity. In the early ‘70s I was often told by fellow students that my medical education was being wasted because I would get married, get pregnant and drop out of practice early on in my career.

Reproductive control became synonymous with two things: “the pill” and abortion access. The public came to rely on the availability of abortion should the pill fail. The US Supreme Court Casey vs. Planned Parenthood in a decision upholding Roe v Wade said as much. Women thought that without guaranteeing these two things they could never achieve gender equality.

It is not the idea of reproductive control that was so flawed, but the choice of methods to achieve it. These methods resulted in grave and unintended consequences. They damaged women in more ways than just some physical ones I will expand upon now.

In June 2005, 21 scientists of the World Health Organization’s International Agency of Research on Cancer met in France. After careful review of the world’s literature they declared that estrogen-progestin combination drugs used in the pill were carcinogenic not only for breast but cervical and liver cancers as well. This breast cancer risk continues for 10 years after stopping these drugs. Estrogen and progestins are potent sex steroid drugs. They are the female counterpart to the male steroids athletes take. At least 75% of all US and 85% of Canadian women have taken these drugs at sometime in their lives. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal noted the fact that birth control pills contain higher doses of the same drugs used in hormone replacement therapy. Millions of women had stopped taking hormone replacement in 2002 for fear of breast cancer after the Women’s Health Initiative study was published. Yet a prominent male Ob-Gyn was quoted in that same article saying that the pill’s advantages “trumps the potential small risks”.  In other words, the trade-off in health risks was acceptable for a convenient sure method of birth control. Acceptable for whom? Convenient for whom? The 33 year old woman with small children I operated on a few weeks ago for breast cancer doesn’t think so.  And neither does any of my other patients over the years. They would have liked to make an informed choice of the many methods of fertility control and not been told the pill is safe as well as convenient.

Even my medical texts repeat those same sentiments all the while ignoring the fact that a small risk taken by millions of women results in tens of thousands of breast cancer cases a year.

Breast cancer is but one of the myriad of physical and psychological effects of abortion. These have been well documented by Canada’s own deVeber Institute in their book Women’s Health After Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence, by Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy and Ian Gentles.

I first learned about the abortion breast cancer link in 1994 from a physician and thought it was a pro-life fantasy. After all, I was a well informed successful breast surgeon. It wasn’t in my texts and wasn’t spoken about at scientific meetings. But when I looked at the histories of my own young patients with cancer, the association was there. Still not convinced, I didn’t look further until a 1996 meta-analysis by Dr. Joel Brind showed that the preponderance of the data confirmed a positive association. Further study over the next 3 years brought me to the point of certainty in 1999. That was when a Harvard professor, an acknowledged expert in risk assessment, admitted to me that abortion was a risk factor for breast cancer but would not speak about it publicly. It was only then that I informed my patients of that risk and became a women’s advocate on this and similar issues.

The link between abortion and breast cancer is simply the result of a woman’s biology.

A lobule is a unit of breast tissue that contains a milk duct and milk producing glands.

Pregnancy hormones cause the breast to double in size in the first two trimesters by increasing the numbers of cancer vulnerable Type 1 and 2 lobules. About 95% of all breast cancers start in these lobules.  Cancer resistant Type 3 lobules do not start to form until after 32 weeks of pregnancy. If a woman’s pregnancy ends abruptly with a naturally caused premature birth before 32 weeks, studies show that her risk of breast cancer more than doubles. The shortened pregnancy has left her breast changed with more places for cancer to start. Studies have shown the longer she is pregnant before premature delivery the higher her risk. She had more time to make more cancer vulnerable lobules. She also did not gain the risk reducing effect of a full term pregnancy. These facts are not disputed by scientists at meetings or in texts.

Yet, if a woman has her pregnancy ended through an abortion, which can be described as a physician induced premature delivery of a dismembered fetus, it becomes hotly disputed that this results in the same risk of breast cancer as the woman with the premature birth. This is despite the fact that the impact on her body physiologically is the same in both circumstances.

Why haven’t cancer organizations such as the Canadian and American Cancer Societies informed women of this risk?  I believe they are reluctant to contradict the most respected and world renowned organization concerning cancer, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the United States.

Why hasn’t the NCI warned the public of these documented risks? The evidence shows that there are serious ethical conflicts at US governmental agencies, namely the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which encompasses the NCI and in the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). There is also a well documented history of proven similar misconduct in the recent past.

As reported in the February 2005 LA Times, NIH director Dr. Zerhouni banned all staff scientists from taking drug company fees because he wanted “the NIH to be a source of health information that can be trusted.” Before that, staff scientists could moonlight for drug companies and receive large fees and stock options. That same year the British journal Nature reported a study in which 20% of scientists receiving NIH grants admitted anonymously to scientific misconduct such as changing the results of a study through pressure from a funding source.

This is nothing new. Former FDA director, David Kessler, wrote a book “A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry.” In it he describes how the tobacco industry through its economic and political clout successfully suppressed for decades the link between cigarettes and lung cancer with the willing support of the NCI and medical groups such as the AMA and American Cancer Society. If you read that book you will recognize similar wording and techniques used to suppress the truth of the abortion beast cancer link. For example it was often said, “More studies are needed” or “If there is an association, it is a weak one.”

Like the tobacco industry, enormous profits are made by the pharmaceutical and abortion industries which are adept in influencing the very governmental agencies that are there to protect the public.

As I speak now, former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford is under investigation by a grand jury focusing on improper financial transactions he made in the stock of a company regulated by the FDA and an issue concerning the morning after pill, Plan B. He has invoked his 5^th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Where are the women’s groups that say they want to support women’s rights and reproductive health? Why are they silent when there is so much evidence that women have been misled about the consequences of the pill and abortion?

Where are the physicians? Especially the women physicians? One of the oldest and largest groups of women physicians is the American Medical Women’s Association. Its position papers document that it has been so influenced by the ideology of access to abortion it has lost all logic and commonsense. This organization supports partial birth abortion and is against parental notification. Those positions put my 14 year old daughter at grave risk. In my home state of New Jersey, my daughter can legally be taken a few miles from her home for a second trimester abortion without my knowledge or consent. She could die and be damaged and I have no legal recourse against that outrage.

Planned Parenthood can give my minor daughter dangerous steroidal drugs in the form of the pill, patch, vaginal ring or injection without my knowledge or consent. These drugs can give her breast cancer or a stroke. Seventeen magazine advises their young readers that insurance payments to their family doctor might alert their parents to the fact they are taking contraceptives. They are told Planned Parenthood will not notify their parents if they get these drugs from them.

The role of government is to protect all of its citizens. Women have been misled about the safety of estrogen-progestin drugs. They have been misled about the safety of abortion. Government needs to protect women from the pharmaceutical and abortion industries which are allowed to promote unsafe, untested drugs and procedures on women.

Physicians have not fulfilled their Hippocratic ethos to “First do no harm” in these matters. Physicians should only use these powerful steroidal drugs found in contraceptives with care and caution.

It is only because there are too many women with breast cancer that the harmful effects of these drugs can no longer be ignored.

It is only because of the grass roots efforts of women who are “Silent No More” that the harmful effects of abortion can no longer be ignored.

Women need to learn how to truly empower themselves by learning about their bodies and planning their pregnancies with natural and proven methods of fertility awareness. They should no longer allow themselves to be victimized even by well meaning but ill informed physicians.

It is time for women to face the unintended consequences of the pill and abortion.