Komen and Planned Parenthood

sab..I noticed you just addressed me as barbe....there is another Barb on here that goes by barbe1958 and I don't want you to be angry at her if by chance you have us mixed up. I added the LovesChristmas part months ago in the hope of avoiding those kind of mix-ups.

Given that birth control and possibly abortion raise the rate of breast cancer, it is rather counterproductive for a breast cancer organization to give money to Planned Parenthood.

Moreover, why is one charity giving money to a second charity in the first place? People who want to give money to Planned Parenthood are perfectly free to do so directly.

Um, EvasMom those discussions have been raised/answered/debated/debunked...I would invite you to read back a few pages (but brace yourself.)

"Komen's $7.5 Million Grant to Penn State Appears to Violate New Policy

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which recently announced that it is ending grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening because of a controversial investigation launched by an anti-abortion Republican congressman, currently funds cancer research at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center to the tune of $7.5 million.

Like Planned Parenthood, Penn State is currently the subject of a federal government investigation, and like the Planned Parenthood grant, the Penn State grant appears to violate a new internal rule at Komen that bans grants to organizations that are under investigation by federal, state, or local governments. But so far, only the Planned Parenthood grants appear to have been cancelled." source linky

SAB, thank you! Happy you did not stop commenting.

PP does not just hand out oral contraceptives but offers women various options for contraception plus STI prevention. The providers also screen for many diseases and provide treatment.



If some of you are so anti-choice that you view PP as an evil entity, fine. But do not ignore all the good that it does for various aspects of women's health and for women with the least resources.



I will continue to refute the unscientific claim that induced abortion causes breast cancer.

Well NOW I know why I got breast cancer, it was those darned birth control pills. My ob/gyn and oncologist didn't seem to think so but I'll let them know they were mistaken. Do you mind giving me the source so that I can refer them to it.

 For those who are possibly wondering about Komen corporate sponsors, you can find them here:

KOMEN'S CORPORATE SPONSORS: 
 
http://ww5.komen.org/CorporatePartners.aspx 
 
You know what to do.

Shouldn't our purpose be to beat the disease, to stay strong and healthy, to share awareness and the need for screening, to give courage to those newly diagnosed and, very importantly, support those who are suffering with little chance of recovery.

Politics has no place in our fight against breast cancer!

We are absolutely happy to have it in the active topics, as long as things stay respectful to one another. It was taken out of the active topics, as there was some very negative comments being thrown at fellow members. That is the only reason. We have no connection to Komen. 

The World Health Organization classified oral contraceptives as a carcinogen in 2005, based on numerous studies linking it to breast cancer, liver cancer, and cervical cancer. See http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol91/mono91.pdf

Possibly abortion: evidence is more mixed and disputed. One 1996 meta-analysis found a link, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1060338/?tool=pmcentrez , while other studies have denied any link, see http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-komen-abortion-20120202,0,4411738.story For a critical review of some of the literature, see http://www.jpands.org/vol12no2/brind.pdf and http://www.deveber.org/text/chapters/Chap2.pdf

I suspect that abortion is so politicized that researchers on either side are eager to twist the data to support their point of view, so we'll probably never know the real truth.

As a Scientist I must respond to this

"There has also been studies done that show that women who have abortions also have a higher rate of breast cancer....but no one talks about it too much because it isn't politically correct. "

Those studies were not scientifically accurate and and are examples of how correlation does not imply causation, below is a classic clinical example of such.

^{Numerous epidemiological studies showed that women who were taking combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) also had a lower-than-average incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), leading doctors to propose that HRT was protective against CHD. But randomized controlled trials showed that HRT caused a small but statistically significant increase in risk of CHD. Re-analysis of the data from the epidemiological studies showed that women undertaking HRT were more likely to be from higher socio-economic groups (ABC1), with better than average diet and exercise regimens. The use of HRT and decreased incidence of coronary heart disease were coincident effects of a common cause (i.e. the benefits associated with a higher socioeconomic status), rather than cause and effect as had been supposed.}

And how many of us are on Tamoxifen? Which can cause Uterine cancer. I know I am... sometimes we need to take a risk to help another greater risk.

Thanks, Cindy for being so clear and honest.

Angel thanks for posting that.