Birth control pills increase cancer risks (Press Release 1/26/99)

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Birth control pills increase cancer risks (Press Release 1/26/99)

Misleading Claims by an Industry-Sponsored Study on the Safety of the Pill

 

CHICAGO, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The following was released today by Samuel S.

Epstein, M.D., Professor of Environmental Medicine, University of Illinois

School of Public Health:

 

A January 1999 study, funded by major international pharmaceutical companies,

claims that oral contraceptives pose no risks of breast cancer or other ill

effects. While the study was alleged to be the largest ever conducted, it was

both small scale and insensitive.

 

The study was based on 23,000 healthy women who had " never used " the pill since

1968 and who were subsequently followed up over a 25 year period. The average

age of women at termination of the study was only 49, an age when breast cancer

is relatively uncommon. Not surprisingly, the authors admitted that the number

of breast and other cancers was so small that " further data is needed to confirm

our findings " .

 

In contrast, a 1996 large scale international collaborative analysis of some 54

epidemiological studies, based on over 53,000 women with breast cancer and

published in The Lancet in1996, demonstrated that use of the pill starting in

adolescence increased risks of breast cancer by 60 percent.

 

These risks are clearly underestimates as reflected by the authors 'recognition

that " there is little information about use that ceased more than 20 years ago " ,

a latency much too short to preclude further major increases in breast cancer

rates.

 

Reliance on studies based on such short latencies would have exculpated the

carcinogenicity of asbestos, besides the majority of other recognized human

carcinogens. Other better designed and well controlled studies have reported

much higher risks of breast cancer for women starting use of the pill in their

teens or early twenties, especially with use before a full term pregnancy and

subsequent prolonged use, and among women with a family history of breast

cancer.

 

Moreover, the claim that the current low-dose synthetic ethinyl estradiol pill

is much safer than the high-dose mestranol pill used in the 1960's and 1970's is

misleading as the former is more potent than the latter, besides being some

40-fold more potent than natural estradiol; additionally, ethinyl estradiol,

unlike mestranol, binds to estrogen receptors in the breast.

 

Furthermore, the modern pill is used for much longer periods, often from

menarche to menopause, than was the case with the earlier high-dose pills. It

should further be emphasized that no studies have yet been conducted on the high

potency modern pills and none are reportedly in progress. This is in striking

contrast to the intensive investigation by Federal regulatory and health

agencies on the endocrine-disruptive effects of estrogenic pesticides and other

industrial contaminants whose potency is some 1/500,000th that of ethinyl

estradiol.

 

Of related interest, it should be noted that the incidence of estrogen-dependent

breast cancers, particularly among post-menopausal women, has increased by 130

per cent from the mid 70's in sharp contrast to only a 27 per cent increase in

non-estrogen dependent cancers.

 

This may well be relevant to the risks of the pill as a major source of

incremental estrogen exposure.

 

Clearly, unqualified claims on the safety of the current pill reflect interests

of the pharmaceutical industry rather than scientifically well-based concerns on

women's health.

 

SOURCE: Cancer Prevention Coalition

 

CONTACT: Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.,

 

Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine

 

Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition

 

c/o University of Illinois at Chicago

 

School of Public Health, M/C 922

 

2121 W. Taylor Street

 

Chicago, IL 60612

(312) 996-2297

 

epstein

 

 

http://www.preventcancer.com/patients/med_avoid/pill.htm

 

 

 

 

 

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