Chicago, IL -- The president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, Karen Malec, announced the publication of her article discussing the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, a publication of the Tucson based Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). The article is entitled, "The Abortion-Breast Cancer Link: How Politics Trumped Science and Informed Consent," is published on the AAPS Web site at http://www.jpands.org/jpands0802.htm.
The article discusses the epidemiologic evidence of an ABC link; the silence and denial of the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association and women's groups; media bias; the bitter opposition of pro-abortion politicians; the implications for patient care; and medical malpractice issues.
The AAPS home page says it is "dedicated to the highest ethical standards of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine." The group's motto, "omnia pro aegroto" means "all for the patient."
Malec commented, "The AAPS advocates for patients' rights. It was founded sixty years ago to defend private medicine, which demands that physicians be responsible primarily to their patients. Therefore, our opponents can't dismiss the AAPS and their efforts to protect the health of women as pro-life scare tactics. The article demonstrates that the ABC link is not a dead issue in the medical community, despite the false-hearted efforts of the National Cancer Institute's leaders to put it to rest.'"
Five medical groups recognize the evidence: the Catholic Medical Association, the National Physicians Center for Family Resources, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Polycarp Research Institute, and the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute.
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Absolutely, and some studies have indicated a statistically small increase in breast cancer among women cited as having a certain time-period abortion. I would want even so tenuous a connection explained to a woman whose family shows an increrased rate for breast cancer. That is quite different from stating unequivocally that abortion causes cancer in even some women. The connection (as in cause and effect) has not been substantiated; the case for linking has been based on a statistical glitch that may or may not reveal a causative connection.
thanks for the ping. I will be passing this on to our Health committee.
No one in the pro-life movement is "rooting for cancer." Saying this is like saying that the Surgeon General who first put the warnings on the cigarette packs was rooting for lung cancer and emphysema. I would be satisfied if every woman considering abortion was simply told, "16 out of 17 statistically significant studies report increased risk among women. 7 studies report a more than twofold increased risk." The pro-aborts say that the little darlings don't need their pretty little heads cluttered with information like that.
FYI-- Not any of these experts ever mention the number of childless who have a higher rate of cancer or the number of abortions as even a possiblity when there are so many studies that raise the issue!!
ABC NEWS reported Aug.4.2002 that Marin County is the site of a Breast Cancer Hot Spot.
Breast Cancer Hot Spot
Why Does Marin County, Calif., Have Such a High Breast Cancer Rate?
By Judy Muller
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/marin_breast_cancer020804.html Aug. 4
— Marin County, Calif., just across the bay from San Francisco, is considered an extremely desirable place to live.
It boasts pristine woodlands, beautiful waterways and, with Mount Tamalpais as a stunning backdrop, some very pricey real estate.
Marin's population is predominantly white, affluent, highly educated and very health-conscious.
"I try to eat organic foods as much as I can," said Lynn Oberlander, a local resident. "I try to get my stress level down. I go to yoga. And I hike and I exercise."
But despite all the advantages, Marin County has the highest rate of breast cancer in America, possibly even in the world.
"They tend to be about 40 percent higher than the national average and about 30 percent higher than the rest of the Bay Area," said Tina Clarke, an epidemiologist with the Northern California Cancer Center, who has been studying breast cancer in Marin County since the mid-1990s.
Contact With Cancer
Almost every woman living there has seen it.
"You know, you can't be a middle-aged woman in Marin County and not be aware of the fact that the incidence of breast cancer is much higher here than elsewhere in the United States," said Kim Wright-Violic, a Marin County resident. "In a community that's this small, inevitably you know somebody who either has had cancer and is in remission or has died of cancer."
Among white women aged 45 to 64, the breast cancer rate in Marin has increased 72 percent in the last decade. One year was especially alarming.
"Between 1998 and 1999, there was a 20 percent increase in breast cancer in white, non-Hispanic women living in Marin County," said Janice Barlow, executive director of Marin Breast Cancer Watch, a grass-roots organization formed by alarmed residents in 1995 to study the problem. "It's huge."
For the most recent year for which data is available, 1999, a total of 285 women in Marin County were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. A total of 53 died.
High-Risk Portrait
At the Marin Breast Cancer Watch, Clarke has compiled a portrait of the high-risk group, using census data and cancer registry information.
"Together that gives us a profile of women who are, you know, socioeconomically privileged, tend to be very well-educated, affluent, thereby kind of tend to be professional," Clarke said. "With the professional comes having fewer children or not having children at all, delaying child bearing all together.
Dr. Georgie Farren fits that profile. Ten years ago, at the age 42, with three very young daughters to care for, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"It was definitely a shock," she said. "I was at the time a runner and reasonably healthy, careful of what I did and what I ate."
Farren is involved in a study on whether risk factors from adolescence might contribute to the high rate.
"Two of those women have died of breast cancer since we began it," she said. "So, you know, it's a disease that's serious and it's taking its toll on the population."
Could the fact that educated, affluent women tend to get regular mammograms account for the high numbers being reported? Clarke says no.
"If everyone was just getting a lot of mammography and they were catching it earlier, I think you would expect that the Marin women would have less of the late-stage disease, but they have about the same proportion of the late-stage disease," she said. "And they have a much higher mortality rate, just like their incidence rates."
That high breast cancer rate is evident to oncologists in local hospitals.
"I noticed the breast cancer rates were high, and almost immediately my entire practice filled up with women with breast cancer, " said Dr. Francine Halliberg, who started practicing in Marin County 14 years ago. "And every year, I see more women with breast cancer."
A Demographic Issue?
One of those women is Christine Chadlick. She is a business professional who had her children in her 30s, which is considered late in reproductive terms. Delayed childbirth is considered a risk factor.
"I fit the demographic profile perfectly," she said. "So if it is a demographic issue, then I'm sitting right in the middle of that. Not much I can do."
But what does that mean a demographic issue? Does that mean the high incidents of breast cancer is linked to being affluent and educated?
"It obviously isn't a risk factor," said Barlow of Marin Breast Cancer Watch. "It just is a characteristic. There must be some behaviors that go along with being high socioeconomic level.
"What are those behaviors?" she added. "Well, I think those are the things that we're trying to study. … That's the mystery."
Cause Speculation
The Marin volunteers include Chadlick, whose cancer was caught early. She is now part of a study looking at whether the cancer cases might be clustered within certain areas of the county.
"They had us map our neighborhood," Chadlick said. "There is a creek in my neighborhood. We're near the ocean, obviously. There is a Styrofoam cup plant."
At this point, the only thing they know for certain is that they have a huge problem. As for what's causing it, there are few facts and a ton of theories.
"Maybe something in the ground?" Oberlander said. "Maybe something in the water? Maybe something in the air? Maybe it's all of the satellite antennas? I don't know."
One theory is that these women would get breast cancer wherever they lived, but because so many who are white, affluent and educated live in Marin, so the area shows up as a statistical phenomenon.
"I think of it as almost a petri dish," Clarke said. "It happens to be a county. It happens to be pretty small. It happens to be homogeneous."
Risk Factors
Clarke's [Tina Clarke, an epidemiologist with the Northern California Cancer Center, who has been studying breast cancer in Marin County since the mid-1990s.] approach is strictly scientific. The epidemiologist looks first at known risk factors: "Having no children at all, or having few numbers of children, having higher levels of education and income — those are the ones we've really focused on."
Another risk factor: Affluent women tend to get better medical care and may be exposed to more radiation over the years. They also tend to use hormone replacement therapy during menopause, and estrogen levels may play a role. And there are other habits associated with this demographic group.
"I wonder a little bit about alcohol," Clarke said. "Alcohol consumption is a risk factor for breast cancer, and we've seen in some previous studies conducted in the entire Bay Area that women out here tend to drink more."
The fact that so many women here fall into the same high-risk group may not entirely explain the high rate of breast cancer.
Many residents and some researchers wonder if there is something in the environment, and almost everyone has a theory. Some point to the manicured lawns and the use of pesticides. Others wonder if it might be the chemicals used by dry cleaners. Affluent people tend to use dry cleaners more often than others.
The environmental theories have prompted many residents of Marin to take extra precautions — buying nonpolluting household cleaning products, for example, and being careful not to dump potential toxins down the drain.
"I'm assuming it's got to be some kind of environmental aspect," Wright-Violic said. "I do not buy the idea that it has to do with affluence or education or early detection because there's too many other affluent communities that don't match the cancer rates here."
No other community matches the rates of Marin, but a couple of studies of similar communities suggest that the lifestyle choices of the affluent may be a contributing factor.
A study done in Newton, Mass., for example, pointed to the higher use of pesticides in affluent homes, saying these finding are "intriguing because components of many pesticides contain endocrine-disrupting compounds." Exposure to those compounds may increase the risk of cancer.
Seeking Answers
The community activist group in Marin, meanwhile, is trying to raise funding for more scientific studies that might solve the mystery.
"I think it's the possibility of being able to prevent breast cancer is really what makes us get up early and go to bed late," Barlow said.
The answer can't come too soon for women like Chadlick. She is recovering from her breast cancer, but she's already taken some preventive measures of her own.
"A lot of us are trying to reduce the stress in our lives," she said, "even though there is no proof" stress is a factor.
Barbara Niehe, who has lived in Marin for 25 years, is battling another round of cancer. Prevention is moot for her, but she would still like some answers.
"I think I had my eyes and ears closed for some many years because it wouldn't happen to me, it couldn't happen to me," Niehe said. "And I was healthy. I was an outdoor person. I hiked five miles a day. I didn't smoke. I drank a little. So I wasn't concerned."
Now, thanks to the efforts of the Marin Breast Cancer Watch, the whole community is concerned.
"I just can't help but wonder if this is, you know, the canary in the gold mine," Clarke said. "And this could be happening in smaller communities that are, you know, swallowed up in big counties and we'll never be able to do good cancer surveillance on a yearly basis there … the way we can in Marin."
Mere Propaganda
State's "Great News" Not So Great at All
By George Neumayr
http://www.sffaith.com/ed/articles/2003/0103gn.htm The state's teen birth rate has dropped below the national average for the first time since 1980, reported the California Department of Health Services in October. "We've kind of lagged behind the rest of the country and the national average," Anna Ramirez, chief of the California Office of Family Planning, said to the Associated Press. "This year is the first year we've had the great news."
But is it great news? Does a decrease in teen births mean a decrease in teen promiscuity, teen sexually transmitted diseases, teen abortion?
A dropping teen birth rate is a most misleading measure of progress. If it meant that teens were abstaining from sexual activity, the number would prove meaningful. But it doesn't. The state's "great news" actually masks more bad news, namely, that California teens are using abortion and contraceptive services with ever greater frequency.
Notice that the state is reporting not the number of teen pregnancies, but the number of live births from teen females aged 15-19. Roughly 45 out of every 1,000 teen females in California gave birth in 2001, totaling nearly 57,000 births. The national average is 46 births per 1,000 teen females. "California currently ranks 32nd in the nation" in teen births, according to the Associated Press.
Read these numbers with a "jaundiced eye," suggested Art Croney, executive director of the Committee On Moral Concerns in Sacramento. "The real questions are: How many teen pregnancies? How many teen abortions?" he said. Very conveniently the California Department of Health Services does not supply answers to these revealing questions. "The state doesn't collect that information. And that's how the state wants it, so the problem of promiscuity can continue. This report on the teen birth rate isn't worth the paper it is printed on," said Croney.
But for state officials seeking to entrench sex education programs more firmly in California's public schools, news of a falling teen birth rate holds immense political and propaganda value. Indeed, California state officials quickly pointed to news of the dropping teen birth rate as evidence of greater teen "responsibility." But what is the state's definition of responsibility?
"Teen responsibility" for the state does not mean that teens are behaving more virtuously. It simply means that they are showing more utilitarian efficiency in containing the visible consequences of their sins. "The state is telling teens if you have sex, use contraceptives. If you have pregnancies, get an abortion," said Karen Holgate, director of policy for the Capitol Resource Institute. Holgate said the state's announcement of the dropping teen birth rate is an attempt to drive that philosophy deeper into the schools. "This is all for the purposes of propaganda and lobbying to say, 'look our programs are working,'" she said.
And mainstream journalists are more than happy to help state officials orchestrate this propaganda charade. In the Associated Press report on the dropping teen birth rate in California, the state government's definition of sexual responsibility isn't even questioned: "Officials attribute the decline to the state's media campaign, which encourages sexual responsibility among teenagers and educates them about their options." The Associated Press also accords Kathy Kneer, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the status of an authority on the effectiveness of contraceptive-centered sex education. She told the unquestioning Associated Press reporter that the contraceptive "approach is more effective than the Bush administration's focus on the practice of abstinence. 'That probably hasn't happened since Adam and Eve,'" she said.
...This may account for the anomaly of Marin County, arguably the most culturally liberal county in the state, boasting the lowest teen birth rate in the state at 12.9 births per thousand teen females. "The state may just be celebrating that more babies are being killed," said Carroll.
Study shows Bay Area breast cancer rate is highest in the world
No cause found for high rates among white women
Agency researchers found that in the nine Bay Area counties, there will be about 4,500 new cases of breast cancer and 1,000 deaths this year -- or 12 new cases and three deaths every day, according to the cancer center.
By Jane Kay and John Flinn
Special to the Free Press
Fri Nov 11 13:21:19 PST 1994
http://www.well.com/conf/media/SF_Free_Press/nov11/breastcancer.html SAN FRANCISCO -- White women in the Bay Area have the highest rate of breast cancer in the world -- a rate half again as high as that for most European women and five times higher than for women in Japan, according to a report from an international cancer research agency.
The authors of the report could not pinpoint a cause of the high breast cancer rates, but said that several factors, including diet and exposure to toxic substances, might be to blame.
"There must be something about being in the United States and in the Bay Area that is associated with breast cancer," said Dr. Robert A. Hiatt, director of prevention science at the Northern California Cancer Center in Union City, a branch of the California Cancer Registry.
"Something is going on that has to do with the environment. It might be diet. It might be medication. It might be reproductive practice. But we don't know for sure."
Hiatt and others also suggested that the rate may be higher because of more effective screening here.
The report, entitled "Cancer in Five Continents," was prepared by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and released by the Northern California Cancer Center.
Agency researchers found that in the nine Bay Area counties, there will be about 4,500 new cases of breast cancer and 1,000 deaths this year -- or 12 new cases and three deaths every day, according to the cancer center.
The rates are highest for white women, followed by blacks. The lowest rates are among Latinas and Asian and Pacific Island Americans.
Studies show that breast cancer rates for migrants become more like the rates of women in their host countries than in their countries of origin, leading researchers to believe that environmental or behavioral patterns affect the onset of the disease.
Following the Bay Area on the international list are Hawaiian women living in Hawaii; whites in Atlanta; Bay Area blacks; women in British Columbia, Utah and Geneva, Switzerland; Atlanta blacks; women in Denmark; Jewish women in Israel; and women in New Zealand and Scotland.
While the Bay Area has the highest breast cancer rate in California, white women in Los Angeles and Orange County aren't far behind. The two regions aren't included in the worldwide ranking because their cancer registries don't go as far back as 1987, the year in which data were taken for the ranking.
The Northern California Cancer Center, in making the data public, said that "it is not clear why invasive breast cancer rates in the Bay Area are so high." But the authors suggest three possibilities, in order:
 A medical care system that is effectively diagnosing and reporting breast cancer.
 A population that may have more risk factors, including more women delaying birth or not giving birth, more obesity or more alcohol consumption.
 Women in the area having a higher exposure to unidentified environmental factors.
Scientists have known for years that the Bay Area ranks high for breast cancer among the areas that collect data. The Breast Cancer Fund, a nonprofit public interest foundation, took the information public at a recent press conference.
Andrea Martin, one the fund's founders, said she thinks the Bay Area leads the list for two reasons. First, women are taking charge of their health care and undergoing more breast exams, which turn up more cancers.
"But it also means," Martin said, "that as a more affluent community, we are able to avail ourselves of more products and foods that contain toxins."
Hiatt, who is also assistant director of the Division of Research at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute [proabortion] in Oakland, agrees the Bay Area's rate is higher because of effective screening, including mammograms, clinical examinations and self-exams that detect the cancers early.
And that, Hiatt said, is a good thing. "If we're picking up cancers early," he said, "we would expect the mortality to go down soon." In the latest two years, data show a slight dip in the death rate.