So they say the pill is safe?
Not everything you hear of these days is the sweetness
and light it may seem. January 1999 brought main news headlines of a newly published
25 year study reported in the British Medical Journal (Jan 8th 1999) on the
pill's long term side effects. "Pill Study shows no long term side-effects"
ran the headline in the Irish Times.. "Pill gets all clear in 25 year study"
reported the Irish Independent. Ten years after giving up the pill, its adverse
effects by death from cancer and stroke were no different than any other causes.
Ecstatic acclamations were reported from the pill providers in Ireland. "Fantastic
news" was the reaction by Irish Family Planning Associations (IFPA) board
member Professor Walter Prenderville reported in the Irish Times January 8th
1999. There was now "little cause for concern" for women. Dr Sheila
Jones, also of the IFPA, commented "it was very reassuring for women who
might have been worried" One could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps
all along we had been too hard on the pill and all the negative press it had
suffered. Too hard, that is, until one actually reads the British Medical Journal
(BMJ) article itself and analyses it in the light of current medical literature.
Only half the story was reported in the press. The study in question explicitly
admitted "significant excess mortality" amongst women who are current
users and recent users (up to ten years since last use) For this group, the
risk of death for cervical cancer was increased by as much as 200%, for cerebrovascular
disease (stroke) an increase of 170% and circulatory diseases 120%. It was
only amongst those who survived the first ten years that the relative risk
returned to baseline! This is small comfort for those women who DID die of
clotting, stroke or cancer. Those women, for obvious reasons, weren't included
in the statistics for those women surviving beyond ten years.
And there's more. One glaring weakness in citing this study are the statistics
for breast cancer. This study bears no relevance to the greatly increased
breast cancer risk (200-480%) reported in other studies for early pill users
ie 19 years or younger. This is because the women involved in the study had
a median age of 24 years at the start of the study and 49yrs at the end. The
risks are 2-4 times higher for women up to 19 years old compared to women
20-24 years because of the rapid tissue and hormonal maturation process in
the younger age group. Furthermore, this study is completely irrelevant to the brands of pills implicated
in the 1995 pill scare and deep vein thrombosis (blood clots). This study
started in 1968, with formulations that bear no resemblance to today's pills.
With the modern day brands of pills involved in 1995, the risk of blood clots
is 600-900% higher than non users of the pill across all age groups. In 15-19
year olds, this can be estimated to rise to twenty fold.
With the incidence of breast cancer, cervical cancer, blood clots, infertility
and stroke with the use of the pill, the bald reality is that we are dealing
with drug induced vandalism of the female physiology. The spin put on the
results of this study by family planning advocates who encourage pill use
whilst soothingly minimizing the dangers is a profound injustice to women.
The study reported above deals purely with the clinical side-effects of the
pill. The inherent abortifacient nature of the pill is a subject that women
too are kept in the dark about. Witness the confusing pharmaceutical jargon
employed in the pill leaflet information to describe its mode of action, jargon
which admits the possibility of an abortifacient action with terminology that
non-medically trained women would struggle to understand. As a pharmacist,
I can say with certainty that EVERY type of pill has an intrinsic abortifacient
action as a backup mechanism should the other modes of action fail. That a
women could unknown to herself be aborting her child after conception during
pill use is a shocking reality to many when they realize it. This is a reality
denied by many doctors, family planning associations, and other health care
professionals.
The ethical and moral implications are profound - not just for the women
using these drugs but for the health care professionals promoting these drugs.
As with abortion, real and uncomfortable questions arise regarding the status
of the embryo from conception - its personhood, dignity and sacred character.
It is ironic that the very people and organizations who clamored do much for
contraception in the 1970's and 80's, claiming it would prevent abortion in
Ireland are the very same parties who are calling for abortion now in the
1990's. Indeed, some are in the forefront of promoting so-called "emergency
contraception" whilst denying its explicitly abortifacient action. It
is in the interest of the same parties to minimize the impact of pill scares
so they can continue their agenda unhampered, an agenda profoundly at variance
with the Judeo-Christian life and sexual ethic.
Women who use these products deserve to know all the realities and to make
a fully informed choice. To deprive them of this is an attack on their dignity.
Women should not be allowed to be scapegoats in the pursuit of vast financial
interests. The side-effects of the pill is only a side issue. What we are
really witnessing is the clash of two opposing values systems of morality
and sexuality. The choice made will greatly impact the welfare or the detriment
of us all.
The figures reported for breast cancer are surprisingly low in every table
cited even for women using the pill for greater than ten years duration. Whilst
not questioning the validity of methodology of the researchers, the figures
reported fly in the face of all the other studies reporting substantial correlation
between breast cancer and duration of pill use. In one study of 918 Dutch
women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, 85% had used the pill at some
time in the past. Another study reported a 310% increase with greater than
10 years use. Even 3 months use of the pill was associated with a 100% increase
in breast cancer. The researchers in the BMJ study did acknowledge that "further
data are needed to confirm our findings"
Patrick McCrystal Jan 1999
Executive Director
Human Life International (Ireland)