dk

There's no question ACS are the subject matter experts i.e. opinion makers. The Texas congress is an elected body that represents the people, and Texas is a big very diverse state, perhaps pivotal because of their large Hispanic population. At the very least this shows many people in Texas have lost confidence in the opinion makers and/or the mainstream media. Maybe its related to Fox News, talk radio, NYT Jayson Blair scandal, Internet News or the War against Terror. Whatever your politics or mine, I don't think you can write it off to waco fundies, this is something new, something different, something more.

Loren Pechtel

I"m not writing it off, I'm saying it's not the will of the majority of the people of Texas. It's the will of a vocal minority.

dk

Do you think the people of Texas want medical science/prestigious medical institutions to become shills for special interest groups. Still, that is precisely what happens when politics and science collide, and we should be able to agree that's the problem. The question is how to solve the problem, or how to extricate science from political entanglements? Dehumanizing people with derogatory labels like "fundie" only aggravates the problem.

dk

dk: For example, today I found on the ACS web page… Cancer Organization that says, Female hormones: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in post-menopausal women may slightly reduce their risk of colorectal cancer. HRT lowers the risk of developing osteoporosis in post-menopausal women but may increase breast and uterine cancer risk.
Dr Rick: Everyone of those statements is correct; there is no attempt to hide information from anyone, and there is nothing misleading about it.
dk: Then abortion providers, pro-choice advocates and ACS should have no problem with the Texas Law that requires abortion providers to disseminate information.

Dr Rick: The overall health effect of HRT is a positive one for most women but the decision to take estrogen should be based on discussion of benefits and risks with a physician.”
dk: JAMA reported a trial on estrogen and progestin (CHRT treatments) scheduled to run 8.5 years was stopped after 5.2 years because of the increased risks to study participants i.e. risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and pulmonary embolisms. They don’t stop a study without hard evidence.

Dr Rick: In other words, there never was a recommendation on the subject from the ACS, just a summary of the available data at the time which indicated that the benefits outweigh the risks. Medicine, like all of the applied sciences, changes as new information is obtained, and now the preponderance of evidence shows that the benefits of hrt do not outweigh the risks, though someday that may change once again as we learn more.
dk: Let me recount the historical events First…

• 1890s science discovers a link between breast cancer and estrogen.
• 1950s… In a in a rigged study Planned Parenthood uses impoverished Puerto Rican women as lab rats to get FDA approval for synthetic estrogen.
• 1950s Planned Parenthood deceptively marketed massive doses of estrogen (Birth Control Pills) as a PMS treatment.
• 1960s Planned Parenthood went to the Supreme Courts to market massive doses of estrogen as a “penumbra privacy right” protecting preventative birth control.
• 1970s Planned Parenthood goes to the Supreme Court with 10s of thousands of pregnant college coeds in toe for penumbra abortion rights.
• 1970-1990s Breast Cancer rates sharply increase.
• 2002 science discover estrogen can increase risks for breast cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke and pulmonary embolism.

People can’t understand why esteemed medical institutions have, for 30 years, routinely prescribe estrogen for minutia. People have lost confidence in medical research institutions because they appear to be shills for unscrupulous factions in a cultural war. I don’t like it anymore than you, but that’s what has happened, and that’s the reality “abortion counseling laws” reflect.

Dr Rick: This is science, not politics or religion. The scientific information we have has shown that abortion is not linked to breast cancer, and no amount of legislation from Texas or rants about the ACS is going to change that; only scientific evidence can.
dk: Preventative health care treatments given to healthy women for the last 30 years were prescribed errantly. What happened?…

1. medical research institutions are unreliable
2. medical science is unreliable
3. powerful political factions undermine science.
4. some other reason, please explain.

This isn’t business as usual. The Health Care Industry has inexplicably put people’s lives at risk (and worse) then inexcusably put the blame on “science”. Most people don’t buy the lame excuse, I don’t buy it.

Dr Rick: There are some studies that once suggested that blunt trauma to the chest might increase the risk of breast cancer, but those were subsequently disproven by later, better designed studies. There were some early studies that showed a possible connection between abortion and breast cancer, but subsequent, better designed studies have refuted those, too.
dk: Controlled studies often yield misleading results, and many unethical researchers engineer controlled studies to yield a preconceived outcome. That explains why political correctness poses an eminent threat to pedagogy, and why eugenicists, social engineers, radicals, sexists and racists focus upon controlled studies to undermine morality, education and ethics.

Dr Rick: The religious and political attempts to scare women into worrying about breast cancer if they exercise their right to choose is not based upon science, and claims that "we might find" a link can be applied to almost anything that we do.
dk: Are you telling me the detrimental HRT therapies given 100s of thousands of women over the last 30 years were science. You can’t have it both ways. I agree this isn’t science, its what happens when science and politics collide.

dk: Meanwhile in the real world…IT’S ANOTHER NAIL in the coffin” for the use of hormones during and after menopause, said St. Louis gynecologist Dr. Robert Blaskiewicz, a Saint Louis University professor.
….The study appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
….The findings in women 65 and older challenge the long-held notion that estrogen-progestin supplements can help women keep their minds sharp — a belief that was based on smaller, less rigorous studies.” - MSNBC News .
Dr Rick: I'm sure you believe that you must have a point, but whatever it is, it's probably off-topic, too.
dk: My POINT is simple… In medicine… Good ethical science produces reliable results, bad unethical science produces tragedy.

dk: I’m sure the ASC regrets the imprudent recommendation...Conclusions the ACS has published for the last 20 years on the effects of estrogen on cancer have been found errant. Say it ain’t so Joe.
Dr Rick: A not so subtle shift from the word recommendations to conclusions isn't gonna' validate your off-topic nonsense, either, because you are still wrong. The link between estrogen and breast cancer has been known since 1896, and the ACS never challenged it.
dk: Natural and synthetic estrogen have different affects. Endocrinology (study of hormones) was obscure science 25 years ago and how hormones regulate bodily functions is complex and remains generally incoherent. This leads me to think the casual prescription of daily hormones to healthy people is imprudent and generally a bad idea. What do you think?

Dr Rick: The only imprudence we've seen on this thread is the making of false claims about non-existent recommendations influenced by fantasy political agendas.
dk: I’ve offered links for all the sources I’ve posted. I have no idea why your so committed to mindless pointless rebuttals.

dk: Obviously the people of Texas don't trust the ACS, or they wouldn't have passed a law to override the findings of the ACS. We have a crisis of confidence because people have lost trust in the health system. (snip)
Dr Rick: In order: a false dichotomy, a strawman, and another demonstration of imprudence.
dk: Your (snip) political opinions appear to have (snip).

dk: I was reporting a long history of malfeasance by health agencies like the ASC...that’s what happens when science and politics collide
Dr Rick: You've been making stuff up and getting called on it, but that’s what happens when ignorance and religion combine.
dk: I didn’t make up the Texas abortion counseling statutes. Earth to moon, Dr. Rick are you there?

Godless Dave

Care to cite a source for these "facts"? Particularly the rigged studies?

Dr Rick

...if there is anyone that still sincerely has any doubt that there isn't a link between abortion and breast cancer, I'll gladly address it. Also, you can see my first post on this thread for a summary of the evidence refuting any putative connection between the two.

Also, if anyone is left wondering about the safety of birth control pills or the recent data on HRT and how it differs from birth control pills, I'll be happy to address that as well, but start a new thread and PM me to let me know about it.

Finally, visit the ACS website at www.cancer.org if you want to learn what this non-profit organization really does and recommends.

Rick

Godless Dave

Actually a friend of mine worked for the American Cancer Society for awhile. Believe me encouraging people to have abortions so doctors can make money is the last thing on their minds.

dk

• 1890s science discovers a link between breast cancer and estrogen.
  Someone else gave 1890s as a date, I read 1880s on www.cancer.org.
• 1950s… In a in a rigged study Planned Parenthood uses impoverished Puerto Rican women as lab rats to get FDA approval for synthetic estrogen.
  There’s a pretty good article on pbs someplace that details the event.
• 1950s Planned Parenthood deceptively marketed massive doses of estrogen (Birth Control Pills) as a PMS treatment.
  ibid
• 1960s Planned Parenthood went to the Supreme Courts to market massive doses of estrogen as a “penumbra privacy right” protecting preventative birth control.
  Griswold case
• 1970s Planned Parenthood goes to the Supreme Court with 10s of thousands of pregnant college coeds in toe for penumbra abortion rights.
  I’m directly reference Roe, but Planned Parenthood opened up shop on most college campuses in the late 1960s. You might want to read a little of Herbert Marcuse to place my comment in a more general context. He wrote “Eros and Civilization” in 1955 and explains the political strategy of social movements on college campuses in the 1960s. Marcus integrated Freud, Hegel and Marx, and was very popular amongst the “new left” in the 1960s, here’s a link to a short article MARCUSE, Herbert (1898-1979) . Obviously my comment was figurative but the number of abortions and explosion of unmarried young women in the late 1960s and early 1970s affirm the assertion.
• 1970-1990s Breast Cancer rates sharply increase.
  Already provided earlier in the thread.
• 2002 science discover estrogen can increase risks for breast cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke and pulmonary embolism.
  ibid.

dk

Nobody has said the ACS runs a charitable fund for impoverished abortion doctors. Reproductive health has become a political issue, and reproduction has become a political weapon in a cultural war.

Godless Dave

And who politicized it? Conservatives who wanted to hold back technology that would give women more control over reproduction. There is a culture war going on, but I think you are confused about who the good guys and bad guys are, and about which side is using bad science and unsubstantiated rumor to advance their cause.