Andrea Mitchell’s breast cancer
NBC/MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell announced on air September 7 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWI_gBz_xNo[/youtube]
I was sorry to hear of Mitchell’s illness and happy to hear she has a “terrific prognosis,” according to her, because her cancer was detected early.
Mitchell had a well-known risk for getting breast cancer.
On page 60 of her 2006 book, Talking Back… to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels, Mitchell wrote, “In many ways, they [children of fellow journalist Judy Woodruff], and my nieces and nephew have become surrogates for the children I never had.”
Why the connection? Explains BreastCancer.org:
Women who haven’t had a full-term pregnancy or have their first child after age 30 have a higher risk of breast cancer compared to women who gave birth before age 30.
When breast cells are made in adolescence, they are immature and very active until your first full-term pregnancy. The immature breast cells respond to the hormone estrogen as well as hormone-disrupting chemicals in products. Your first full-term pregnancy makes the breast cells fully mature and grow in a more regular way. This is the main reason why pregnancy helps protect against breast cancer. Being pregnant also reduces your total number of lifetime menstrual cycles – which may be another reason why earlier pregnancy seems to offer a protective effect.
According to the World Health Organization, estrogen is a Class I carcinogenic, as toxic to humans as tobacco.
The point of this post? It is to draw on Mitchell’s tragedy as a teachable moment, which I think she would appreciate, to educate that delayed childbearing and not having children increases one’s risk of getting breast cancer.
It is also to once again spotlight that abortion delays and even forgoes childbearing and is therefore an obvious breast cancer risk, no matter how much abortion proponents protest.
This is not to say Andrea Mitchell has had an abortion.
It is to simply to point out the obvious correlation between abortion and delayed/waived childbearing, and thus the obvious correlation between abortion and breast cancer.
One other point. Mitchell correctly mentioned that the incidence of breast cancer in women is now 1 in 8. This is up from 1 in 10 in 1970 and 1 in 20 in 1960.
Why has the risk of breast cancer almost tripled in the past 50 years? The brief decline in 2002-2003 – due in theory to discontinued use of estrogen/progesterone hormone replacement therapy in older women after hrt was shown to cause breast cancer – has disappeared.
There are many risk factors, but The Pill, which contains estrogen and/or progesterone, and abortion must be considered prime culprits.
I wish Andrea Mitchell superb health.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I did a blog on this topic, and got very little response from my female friends. I hope it made them think though. http://indignantconservativemom.blogspot.com/2010/12/pill-and-breast-cancer.html. Great site Jill!
Danielle, good post. Thanks for linking. BTW, my maiden name was Hollar! :)
“According to the World Health Organization, estrogen is a Class I carcinogenic, as toxic to humans as tobacco.”
Jill, this seems kinda crazy. How can the natural hormone of a woman’s body, the way God made us, be toxic? Does not compute… can you elaborate?
Jen, God made the hormones for a purpose: to assist in the creation, nurturing, and feeding of new life. Whenever we live in a way that denies our bodies being used as they were designed, it causes problems. Unused muscles will atrophy. If you kept your eyes closed, your brain would stop relying on them for information and thus they wouldn’t be helpful when you opened them. If you didn’t use your fingertips in everyday tasks, your fingernails would take over. Hormones – same concept, different scenario.
Jen,
From the article
Estrogen postmenopausal therapy
Estrogen-progestogen postmenopausal therapy (combined)
Estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives (combined)
Synthetic estrogen is carcinogenic.
Is that what you are talking about?
Carla, scroll down. “Estrogens, steroidal” is also listed – estrogens produced in the body. (Estrogen is a potent female steroid.) The lists may be confusing because they’re by 2 agencies, with some overlap.
Jen, too much of a good thing is bad. Estrogen serves a vital purpose in a woman’s body. Too much estrogen becomes harmful.
Women were biologically made to have babies, and beginning at a young age. Breast cells mature with one’s first full-term pregnancy and are then resistant for the rest of one’s life to the carcinogenic effects of too much estrogen.
The longer one waits to complete a full-term pregnancy, the longer one’s breast cells remain immature and susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of estrogen.
PLUS, the more children a woman bears, the less her breast cells are exposed to estrogen in a normal menstrual cycle.
So if one delays or forgoes pregnancy, one is susceptible in two ways to breast cancer – by undeveloped breast cells and by extra doses of estrogen on those undeveloped breast cells via additional menstrual cycles.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, Jill, I understand. Actually, I understood that before you explained it, I guess the WHO statement was just rather shocking. To classify estrogen as a carcinogenic sounds alarming. The point, as you said, is too much estrogen.
It really is a powerful thing to realize that when women deny their bodies what their bodies were made for, disease moves in! It is a radical idea to our modern world, but women’s health and well-being is most protected when we don’t suppress and deny our reproductive ability. Imagine that — God knew what He was doing.
Actually the risk starts to rise after age 20.
By citing 30, they are giving the impression that 30 is where the risk starts to rise.
Check it out yourself:
http://www.halls.md/breast/risk.htm
This story “before you guys put your wacko political spin on it” is a perfect example why early breast cancer screenings are SO important. It is this very reason that Komen gives money to Planned Parenthood. Komen has nothing to do with abortion; they are trying to get early detection screenings to be as close to free as possible because they really can SAVE LIVES!
Just because you disagree with PP that a fetus or zygote is not a person or a baby does not mean you should try to demonize the rest of the work they do to save women’s lives every single day. PP employees are not demons; they are mostly women who care a great deal about other women and their health…
I am confused by your point here… so to avoid breast cancer, women should start shooting out babies??? The only way to prevent breast cancer is to put those breasts to work feeding babies? So, be a broodmare or die? Yep sounds like freedom…
So yes Komen for the Cure donates money to pp for breast cancer screenings… to help stop women from dying from breast cancer… I am sure you have some political angle that makes this into something sinister…
Biggz, where have you been? Planned Parenthood does NOT DO MAMMOGRAMS!!
Biggz – so how many people who raise money for the Susan G Komen race for the cure actually know that their money is going to planned parenthood? Not many -
There are other breast cancer research institutes that raise money and do not give to one of the main causes of breast cancer – abortion and the estrogen laden birth control pill.
No one is demonizing planned parenthood workers –
Jen,
Allow me to elaborate here. Yes, estrogen is a WHO Group 1 carcinogen. What is meant by this classification is that it is a confirmed carcinogen. It is lumped in with arsenic and plutonium, which are also known carcinogens. However, the Group 1 designation does NOT speak to the dosage required to cause cancer, nor does it speak to how rapidly the compounds on the list will induce cancer.
In order, plutonium will cause cancer the fastest, followed by arsenic, and lastly estrogen. However, they can and will cause cancer, consistent with the mechanism of action that each accomplishes this by, and the relative dose and exposure time.
LittleZ,
The data established by leading breast cancer researchers, most of whom are rabid proaborts such as yourself, indicate that the earlier a woman has babies, the sooner she converts 85% of her cancer-prone Type-1 and Type-2 breast cells into cancer-resistant Type-3 and Type-4 cells. And that’s after the first full term delivery! The longer she breastfeeds, the more of the remaining 15% of cancer-susceptible cells she converts. Then, with every additional child she has, the conversions continue.
This is because the baby produces the hormone human placental lactogen, whose task it is to convert the immature and cancer-prone breast cells into milk-producing cells.
The biology is simple and elegant.
The longer a woman waits to have babies, the greater the probability that her immature cells will become precancerous under the effects of estrogen production during each menstrual cycle. If she takes the pill, which has estrogens in concentrations that exceed the normal levels by hundreds of times, she accelerates her probability and risk for developing pre-cancerous and cancerous cells.
So to answer your question, yes, the sooner she shoots out full-term babies, the quicker her risk reduction. All of this, scientific fact and published in top-tier medical journals. I’ve already reviewed many of the papers:
http://gerardnadal.com/category/breast-cancer/
I guess we are entitled to our own opinion, but not our own facts. Breasts are a “use ’em or lose ’em” commodity.
Regina gets today’s award for the most said in the least number of words.
Another comment on hormones…… their activities on the body vary with the timing of their use with respect to the already existing natural cycles, and with the stage of life.
Steroid hormones generally act to induce gene transcription leading to increased production of proteins. Imbalance or ill timing of this activity could disrupt growth regulation, leading to cancers.
PP’s plan:
Pay PP to misinform school kids about the causes of breast cancer.
Pay PP to cause your cancer.
Pay PP to screen for cancer with the least effective method of actually finding it and then only finding it late.
Pay PP to do the same for the poor.
Bottom line, Pay PP.
It’s all about Paying PP.
I know plenty of women who have had children and have had breast cancer. I think this is a bizzarre teaching moment – should we just have signs up to tell people to get pregnant as early as possible or they might get breast cancer? Maybe we need a law for that.
I know plenty of women who have had children and have had breast cancer. I think this is a bizzarre teaching moment – should we just have signs up to tell people to get pregnant as early as possible or they might get breast cancer? Maybe we need a law for that.
Maybe women have a right to know that delaying pregnancy for certain reasons can have a risk upon their health, so they can make a fully informed decision about what they feel is best.
Maybe women should be told by their physicians who prescribe birth control to delay pregnancy that the World Health Organization classifies the Pill as a Class I Carcinogen which has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer, and maybe they should be told up front about the risks of the Pill – because they exist – and not everyone reads the package inserts which admit to those risks. That way they can make a fully informed decision about whether or not to use the Pill or some other form of non-hormonal contraception.
Knowledge is power, and women deserve to know the truth before they choose.
Kel – maybe we just keep advancing that ‘knowledge is power’…every time a woman is pregnant, they have to go to an 8 hour seminar of all their options, pros and cons, risk factors, counseling. I think it could be big business and really make sure all the options are fully laid out.
Ex GOP
Ever heard of sex ed and prenatal care? That is when such things are discussed.
Some women who have children late or not at all do so by choice; others don’t. But leaving the abortion issue aside, I really have trouble getting behind the argument that women should be motivated by their cancer risk when timing pregnancies. It seems extraordinarily selfish to be making decisions based on what is best for you rather than what is best for the children.
Lisa,
Women are constantly pressured to delay childbearing. They are told that it is better to wait. They are not told the truth about the risks of waiting. Arguing that teens should be told the facts about pregnancy and breast cancer risk is just arguing for honesty and education. Right now, no one is telling teens the risk they take. All they ever hear is wait, wait, wait. And whatever you do, be sure to wait as long as possible for marriage and family. Career and college. Repeat after me, you want career and college. Marriage and family is for later, much later. Remember, this is what you want. Don’t let anyone tell you different. You want career and college. And you don’t want marriage and family until later if ever. That is what girls hear from kindergarten.
Peg – stop believing everything you read on the internet… as for where I have been, well I have been at Planned Parenthood with my wife and daughter and they both received breast cancer screenings during their last gyno check up.
Once again Komen gives money to PP to keep these screenings as close to or free as possible for low income women. Having a network of health centers already helping most low income women gives these women more and cheaper access to breast screenings.
Gerard – I am not denying the science just the spin. Are you really trying to spin pregnancy as preventive measures against breast cancer? Just something you can just do over a weekend to help you be more healthy? Be sure to take your vitamins and pregnancy every morning with breakfast? A pregnancy a day keeps the cancer doctor away?
Be honest Gerard, this study is really nothing more than a road sign to a real breast cancer cure. It makes me hopeful to see a cure in the future.
I really do not think pregnancy is a legitimate cure for breast cancer even if it does statistically lower the risks. In fact I would say this whole line of thinking is a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who has lost their MOTHER to breast cancer…
“I really have trouble getting behind the argument that women should be motivated by their cancer risk when timing pregnancies.”
Why? Death is rather permanent and breast cancer risk is sky high. We are talking 1 in 9 for women who wait til 30. The problem (which Biggz ignores) is that family planning advocates promote delayed childbearing as better and more advantageous, when the truth is just the opposite. Waiting is deadly dangerous. It is like folks don’t understand the concept of future time orientation and long term vs. short term. They try to paint themselves as so concerned about women, but withhold basic facts from teens about the danger of delaying child bearing. Whether one likes it or not. Early childbearing is normal and healthy and teens deserve to know the truth. Delaying childbearing is very, very unhealthy.
Even the article here was misleading by implying that 30 is when risks rise, but it is really 20.
Hippie – So all girls should be pregnant before 20 years old to reduce the risk of breast cancer… Good luck selling that snake oil…
No what this study is saying “before you guys put your anti-choice spin on it” is that they have identified some chemical imbalances that can raise the risks of breast cancer, and like I said to Gerard this is a great sign post to a cure. We can medically adjust this chemical imbalance to reduce risks in the future. This is a very good thing that has nothing to do with unwanted pregnancies or birth control. This is about beating cancer by identifying its contributing factors medically so they can be treated medically.