July 5, 2007

Letter to the editor
Chicago Tribune
435 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL

Re: "If the pill is OK for you, then no period is OK," by Petra Casey, MD, July 1, 2007

Dear editor:

Some things never change.  In the 19th Century, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss demonstrated that doctors could prevent women's deaths from childbed fever if they would wash their hands before delivering babies.  His recommendations offended obstetrician-gynecologists because that meant doctors were responsible for women's deaths.  They ridiculed him and withdrew his hospital privileges, rather than follow his recommendations.  Women continued to die unnecessarily for some thirty years before doctors changed their ways.

Obstetrician-gynecologist Petra Casey of the Mayo Clinic says oral contraceptives (OCs) are "safe."  That's odd, because the journals, Mayo Clinic Proceedings and the New England Journal of Medicine, published analyses of all studies last year showing that OCs increase breast cancer risk.

The World Health Organization (WHO) classified combined (estrogen plus progestin) OCs as Class 1 carcinogens for cancers of the breast, liver and cervix in 2005. The National Cancer Institute posted this same information on its website a year later without public fanfare, despite the fact that 75% of American women have taken these cancer-forming drugs at some point in their lives.

OCs contain powerful hormonal steroids.  They contain the same type of drugs found in hormone replacement therapy, but at even higher doses.  Estrogen overexposure is connected with the development of most breast cancers.  Estrogen can act as a direct carcinogen.  Progestin accelerates breast cell division, increasing the likelihood of mutations and cancer cells forming. 

OCs can be delivered through the pill, vaginal ring, transdermal patch, injection and some IUDs.

Two decades of research shows that the worst time for a woman to use OCs is before a first full term pregnancy when nearly all of her breast lobules consist of cancer-susceptible Type 1 and 2 lobules.  The breasts do not mature into cancer-resistant Type 3 and 4 lobules until the last months of a full term pregnancy.

Sincerely,

Karen Malec
President   
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
Hoffman Estates, IL 
response@abortionbreastcancer.com
847-421-4000

Angela Lanfranchi, MD, FACS
Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery
Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center
New Brunswick, NJ
angelabcpi@yahoo.com
732-356-0770