Know the facts on breast cancer risks

The Daily Herald reported that a new law allocates $9 million yearly through 2014 to provide an educational program in order to reduce breast cancer incidence among young women, as well as grants and new screening tests. No amount of money, however, will reduce breast cancer rates while federal officials and cancer groups withhold or downplay scientific evidence implicating politically incorrect risk factors for the disease.

Last year's study led by Jessica Dolle, which included National Cancer Institute branch chief Louise Brinton as a co-author, reported that recent users of the pill multiply their risk for the deadly, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) by 4.2 times. Users before age 18 multiply their risk by 3.7 times. Scientists reported a 40 percent increased risk of breast cancer for women who have had abortions (regardless of whether it's TNBC or not). Cancer groups and federal health officials should have issued nationwide warnings.

Childbearing is the traditional mechanism that has helped protect women from breast cancer, but 20th century women changed their childbearing patterns. Medical texts reveal that women with larger families, starting at an early age (before age 24), and who breast-feed their children for more months during their reproductive lives significantly reduce their breast cancer risk. Therefore, experts agree that the woman who aborts has a higher risk than does the one who has a full term birth.

A first full-term pregnancy matures 85 percent of the mother's cancer-susceptible breast lobules into permanently cancer-resistant lobules. The unborn child produces the hormones responsible for the maturation. Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers should be made to disclose these known risks.

Karen Malec

President

Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer

Hoffman Estates