Bizarre, Politics

Birth Control Pills Cause Prostate Cancer

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

New Hampshire state Rep. Jeanine Notter (R-Merrimack) won’t be supporting preventative services for women, such as contraceptives, because it causes prostate cancer. I can find no medical studies that dispute Notter’s claim. Oral contraception has been associated with prostate cancer in this article.

H/T: Blue Hampshire.

26 thoughts on “Birth Control Pills Cause Prostate Cancer”

  2. “Dr. Yuan added that rates of prostate cancer in developing countries appear low, but this probably has nothing to do with the use, or lack thereof, of the Pill.”

    “Like Dr. Yuan, Dr. van Wijngaarden believes that the study has generated an interesting hypothesis, “which is the only thing papers like this can do.” However, he said, “it is far removed from being able to say that oral contraceptive use and prostate cancer are linked on a population level, let alone causally on an individual level.””

    —————–

    Hypothesis-Generating Study

    “This study is hypothesis generating, but in terms of the evidence the authors present to support estrogen as a potential cause of prostate cancer, it is too early to say,” said Jian-Min Yuan, MD, PhD, epidemiologist and newly appointed associate director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Cancer Institute in Pennsylvania.

    “They used aggregate data for each country’s use of oral contraceptives to correlate with aggregate data of prostate cancer rates, but these are just correlations. There are no underlying biological mechanisms, at least not as yet, to show that oral contraceptives are a cause,” explained Dr. Yuan, who also heads the cancer epidemiology, prevention, and control program at UPMC, and is professor of epidemiology at University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health.

    Dr. Yuan added that rates of prostate cancer in developing countries appear low, but this probably has nothing to do with the use, or lack thereof, of the Pill.

    “There could be some kind of biological mechanism that we just don’t understand yet. The belief that estrogen causes prostate cancer could be tested in animal models,” Dr. Yuan noted.

    Weighing in with his opinion about the study, Edwin van Wijngaarden, MD, from the University of Rochester Medical Center, in New York, told Medscape Medical News that the notion that men with more exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, presumably from the drinking water, are at higher risk for prostate cancer seems speculative.

    “All these data can tell you is that, on average, countries with higher oral contraceptive use have a higher prostate cancer incidence. This relationship could have many explanations, even at the country level, as they only controlled for gross domestic product per capita,” Dr. van Wijngaarden said.

    Like Dr. Yuan, Dr. van Wijngaarden believes that the study has generated an interesting hypothesis, “which is the only thing papers like this can do.” However, he said, “it is far removed from being able to say that oral contraceptive use and prostate cancer are linked on a population level, let alone causally on an individual level.”

    Dr. Margel, Dr. Fleshner, Dr. Yuan, and Dr. van Wijngaarden have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
    [Fran Lowry, November 16, 2011, From Medscape Medical News > Oncology, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/753667?sssdmh=dm1.734732&src=nldne%5D
    BMJ Open. 2011;1:e000311 — BMJ Open 2011;1:e000311 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2011-000311
    Published 14 Nov 2011, Occupational & environmental medicine

  4. “Why would the men in the study be taking the Pill??”

    Raff,

    In the hopes of getting into contact with their “feminine side”?

  5. Thanks Mike and anon nurse, I’ve updated the post to include the BMJ article. Takes the humor out though.

  8. There are numerous studies of dolphins (particularly talking dolphins) and the relationship between sewage discharge from pleasure boats in the harbour and dolphin chatter. The more poop discharge, the more blather. Us dolphins do not like the pollution and we bitch about it. My partner Bess, wont go out in the evenings on Saturdays because that is when the humanoids flush. They say: Never on Sunday. We know that they say that because we can understand their utterances. Which gets us to prostate cancer in boaters. Whoops, my time on the DolphinTalkin machine is up.

    Harry and Bess,
    Sittin in for TalkinDog

  9. I once overheard a nurse practitioner ordering a PAP smear for a woman who had had a hysterectomy. Seemed similar, although a PSA test might be more apropos.

  10. Here is a link to the research under question. It is statistical, preliminary and its authors suggest it might be due to other factors. However, as Rep. Notter said herself she is against pills of all sorts. This comes from the Bdaman school of scientific research, also known as “grasp at any straw that reinforces your preconception”.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57325074-10391704/prostate-cancer-tied-to-birth-control-pills-but-why/

  11. Great article David. This is just sheer nonsense and I believe this liar knows that. The disinformation that the Right is spreading on every level concerning contraception is just amazing. That dog won’t hunt.

  12. While this woman apparently has a particular agenda, if we look beyond it, there are some issues that are worth consideration, related to the presence of drugs, hormones, etc. in the water supply and the possible heath consequences.

    http://www.alternet.org/water/80505/?page=entire

    AMY GOODMAN: What about that? What about when it’s put in landfill and how it leaches into — if it leaches into the water there?

    JEFF DONN: That’s the problem. There’s not really much study of exactly how that process is occurring, but the scientists we talked to presume that to some degree it is possible, of course, that some of that pharmaceutical residue then will leach, as you say, from waste areas, from landfills, from dumps, and eventually end up back in the groundwater. And there is research, by the way, that shows that these low amounts of pharmaceuticals do end up — are capable of ending up in aquifers, in the underground groundwater, and not just in streams and rivers and surface waters.

    AMY GOODMAN: What about steroids given to cows and animals, Jeff?

    JEFF DONN: Well, this is a whole ‘nother avenue by which these drugs enter our water stream. Animals are given all kinds of drugs. Veterinary drugs are given to animals on farms. All kinds of antibiotics, all kinds of growth-promoting drugs are given to animals on farms. And these drugs eventually run off in rain and end up in the groundwater and in surface waters, and they’re a whole ‘nother large source of these pharmaceuticals that enter up — that enter into the waste stream. Many of them are a lot like, or even in some cases identical to, human drugs. Some of them are different.

    AMY GOODMAN: In San Francisco, you write that there’s a sex hormone, what is it, Estrone in the water. What is that? How does that affect people?

    JEFF DONN: These are used in hormone treatments and that women take at menopause and such. And they’re — the concern with sex hormones is that they’re very powerful at even a very low levels. So there has been some concern for — about these kinds of drugs for a longer time really than some of the other drugs that were detected in the water. It’s been more like five, six, seven years that there’s been some concern about sex hormones in the context of other kinds of chemicals that also, though not pharmaceuticals, have the ability to disrupt the human endocrine system. The scientists call them endocrine disruptors. So that’s one of the older concerns in this very new field.

    AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of cancer, people who are prone to cancer?

    JEFF DONN: That’s exactly right. There — as you probably know, there are certain kinds of cancer that are prone to estrogen, and there is some concern that these kinds of pharmaceuticals, even in trace amounts, could possibly contribute to cancer. And even as we begin to talk a little bit about what the risk is, what the human risk is, there’s even a little bit of research in human cells with these drugs at very, very low amounts, so the kind that are found in the environment, actually accelerating the growth of human cancer cells. That doesn’t mean that they will do that in the human body, but it’s just a first scientific hint that perhaps they could.

  14. I just wonder where the doctors article was published, Im guessing it wasn’t in any recognized medical journals.

  15. As an RN, one of my duties was pre-and post-op patient teaching. It’s mind-boggling to hear what people think about how their bodies work. So, no big surprise Rep. Notter said that.

  17. Dr Weil once took up the subject of masturbatory effects. His advice did not take up the risk of friction increasing the risk of HPV infection and penile cancer.
    Worried anyone?

  18. Obviously this is tangentially related to creation “science” in some way. Is it me or have the flying monkeys been turned loose again?

  19. I’m even more surprised that birth control pills cause women to have prostates. 🙄

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