A woman M.D. on the relationship b/w oral contraceptives and breast cancer

The truth is the truth which plenty of people don't want to face.

Link between breast cancer and contraceptives, too big to ignore

An article in the most recent issue of the medical journal Cancer Research details yet another study demonstrating a link between breast cancer in young women and the use of oral contraceptives. The authors point out that their study is unique because it relies on electronic pharmacy records, instead of just self-reporting, to accurately verify contraceptive use. In addition, they look at the various formulations of hormonal contraceptives to elucidate variances in risk dependent upon which contraceptive is used. They looked at the contraceptive use of 1,100 women between the ages of 20 and 49 who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and compared them to a control group of nearly 22,000 women.

What they found was that there was an overall 50% increase in the risk of breast cancer in women who had used any oral contraceptive in the last year. This risk was independent of family history. They also identified specific risks associated with the different contraceptive formulations, noting that the larger the estrogen component of the contraceptive, the greater the increased risk. Moderate strength estrogen contraceptives increased the risk of breast cancer by 1.6 fold. High dose estrogen contraceptives increased the risk of breast cancer by 2.7 fold. The use of the popular triphasic oral contraceptives that are supposed to more closely mimic the body’s natural hormonal variations actually more than tripled the breast cancer risk. The progestin component of oral contraceptives also contributed to the breast cancer risk with the increased risk varying from 1.5 fold to 3 fold, depending on which progestin is used.

There are four more paragraphs. 

An excerpt from the last one –

There is a great deal of political pressure to avoid condemning oral contraceptives. … It is time for medical professionals to speak clearly and without apology about the dangers of hormonal contraception.