Know the health risks of being on the pill
Today there is a product being sold that greatly increases the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and other deadly aliments, with 50 years of research demonstrating the danger, and it’s not tobacco.
You’d expect the media, the Food and Drug Administration and women’s health organizations to rally against this product, or, at the very least, have the same label warnings as a pack of cigarettes.
This was the odd conversation in which I found myself engaged when I mentioned Planned Parenthood to a medical research scientist. Discussing “reproductive health” makes me strangely squeamish.
I attempted to extricate myself from a conversation I didn’t want to have, but the crusading doctor would have none of it. To her credit, she moved me from a disinterested bystander to my first conspiracy theory.
I checked the doctor’s story and waded into the evidence, recently put forth in the International Journal of Cancer, that followed 100,000 women and found a 45 percent increase chance of breast cancer for women using the pill.
A 2007 study demonstrated women on the pill had up to a 30 percent increase in plaque in the arteries, which leads some to speculate this is why more women than men are dying of cardiovascular disease.
My Google searches found equally disturbing information such as the synthetic hormones in the pill are 100 to 1,000 times more potent than a woman’s own hormones and don’t just affect ovaries. When the synthetic chemicals in the pill are introduced, the receptors all over a woman’s body, including, bones and the immune system, are dramatically altered. These chemicals throw off the natural hormone balance of women’s bodies.
Unless you’re blind to the facts or, like me, cared little for something I considered a private issue belonging to the opposite sex, you can’t help but see the truth.
Why are the media strangely silent on an issue that harms so many? Where is the leadership in government that has all but outlawed cigarettes for causing cancer but has done nothing to warn women against this danger?
Why is the most righteous defender of women, Planned Parenthood, still promoting this remarkably destructive potion? Is there really a war on women?
Unfortunately, all the answers point to money.
Big pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars selling the pill. A lot of the money finds its way into the hands of politicians, who justify taking the cash by waving the flag of women’s rights.
These same big dollars also flow to the lucrative and politically well-connected industry known as Planned Parenthood. The more the organization pushes for taxpayer funded contraception, under the guise of women’s health, the more federal funding and tax-deductible donations it receives from a misled and ill-informed public.
There are natural methods of birth control, well beyond the outdated “rhythm method,” which incorporates Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor that, according to the well-respected Marquette School of Nursing, can be equally as effective as the pill, without any of the downside negative effects. However, there is little money to be made empowering women with these choices.
Unlike Sandra Fluke, I’m not advocating anything. I’d merely like all the facts to be known.
In a country where McDonald’s Happy Meals are being outlawed and federal agents are raiding farms to save us from the dangers of raw milk, would you not think protecting women would be worthy of some consideration?
Sadly, it appears profits and politics trump the truth.
G. Joseph McLiney is the father of five children and three grandchildren and runs a private investment bank headquartered in Kansas City. He lives in Kansas City. To reach him, send email to oped@kcstar.com or write to Midwest Voices, c/o Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108.
William Buchanan
12 months agoUse the link below to get a more balanced view of the link between oral contraceptives and cancer.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/oral-contraceptives
Steve Alleman
Kansas City
12 months agoBeing an investment banker with five kids somehow qualifies this guy to pontificate about medicine? I look forward to editorials from biochemists about banking regulations.
Mark Robertson
12 months agoSo, are we not allowed to comment on a subject unless we have a degree in the field? I comment on economics all the time, but I have no formal training, just reading on my own and listening. Mr. McLiney is passing on what he learned from a research scientist, and what he read on his own. The claim that one is not “qualified” to comment on a subject is often used as a silencing ploy by the left. The dangers of the pill are widely available to study about, and NFP is taught all across the country. Great and bold column, Mr Mcliney. Thanks to the Star for publishing it. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
Steve Alleman
Kansas City
12 months agoRobertson: “Mr. McLiney is passing on what he learned from a research scientist, and what he read on his own.”
Sadly no, he is passing on talking points from the theocon wing of the Republican party.
Suzanne Conaway
12 months agoJoey, This is a case where, most of the time, the benefits outweigh the risks.
I inherited my mother’s devastating periods. One to two days a month I was incapacitated by cramping, vomiting and diarrhea. My periods lasted a minimum of eight days — four of which were extremely heavy bleeding.
My doctor put me on the pill when I was 21 and for the next 30 years, I had blessed relief. No cramps, no diarrhea, no vomiting and five-day periods. I stopped the pill long enough to have a beautiful daughter, then went back on.
I admit, I did get breast cancer. From February 2000 to August 2000 I had intermittent pain from the chemo and radiation. However, weighing the six months of pain off and on against 30 years of incapacitating cramps, I’m so glad the ‘pill’ was there.
Sarah St John Boyd
12 months agoAh yes, nothing I like more than a middle-aged male banker telling women what’s good for their reproductive health. Did your Google research also tell you, Mr. McLiney, that the pill does an excellent job of PREVENTING ovarian cancer? That about a third of prescriptions for the pill are for non-contraceptive purposes? For devastatingly awful periods like Ms. Conaway describes, anemia prevention, acne remedies?
You will never know, Mr. McLiney, what sweet relief the pill can provide to a woman who has vomit-inducing cramps every month and loses far too much blood. You are not a woman or a medical doctor, so please keep your internet search results to yourself. One can find almost anything on the internet to bolster one’s opinion.
Consider this, which says the pill more than halves the risk for getting ovarian cancer, which is far more deadly and far less treatable than breast cancer. This took me about 2.5 seconds to find online. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/ovarian-cancer-risk-slashed-pill/story?id=14821039
Suzanne Conaway
12 months agoKay Fox,
A right-wing Reagan appointed Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, also wondered about the mental/physical state of women who’d had abortions. So, he had a study done. Although he was a pro-lifer, he had to admit that the results of the study showed a) there’s less physical harm from abortions that from actaully giving birth and b) the incidence of depression/guilt and/or other mental anguish was no higher in women who’d had abortions than in the general population.
So much for the pro-lifer (anti-women) argument.
Lucy Rogers
11 months, 3 weeks agoI’m pro-life and pro-contraception. Birth control pills have other uses beside contraception. For example, they can be very helpful to women who have difficult periods (interestingly, according to the Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church allows for the use of birth control pills in this case.) However, I do agree that women should be informed of the risks before deciding whether or not to use birth control.
“So much for the pro-lifer (anti-women) argument.”
It’s interesting how pro-aborts like to paint pro-lifers as anti-woman, when pro-aborts are the ones who condone the murder of females in the woman. Do all post-abortive women have adverse physical or mental effects. No. But, many pro-aborts don’t like to admit that there ARE women who do.
Ultimately, this ignores the real issue here: that abortion kills a human being.