10 TO 30 TIMES "POSSIBLY CARCINOGENIC TO HUMANS"... NOW BEING DISPENSED IN CONNECTICUT

Plan B is a drug that is 10 to 30 times the dosage of the drug [1] that, based on 9-year-old data that didn't evaluate Plan B itself, is classified as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" ["Progestogen-only contraceptives (Vol. 72; 1999)".

My state (Connecticut) legislators have just passed a bill that requires all hospitals, even Catholic ones, to dispense this very same Plan B to women already victimized by rape, regardless of whether or not fertilization has taken place, thus forcing the Catholic hospitals to either 1) shut their doors and put all the low-income patients they serve at next to no cost, back onto the backs of the state's other hospitals, or 2) operate contrary to our right to religious freedom by being forced to dispense an abortifacient drug.

Before anyone jumps in about what they think they know about this issue, please first get the accurate background about this battle. This and its accompanying linked articles are among the best to address the falsehoods with which the mass media is misleading the public.

And there are studies that have found Plan B does have "a postfertilization contraceptive effect", which in scientific terms, is the very definition of "abortifacient."

Worse, this state's legislators--and governor, if she signs the bill--will not be around to make amends to those women and their families 20 years from now if studies show that, like HRT, it fueled their cancers and killed them.

Consider this response I received from a licensed pharmacologist:

There won't be any long term studies of plan B and carcinogenicity for 20 years. Took a long time for the HRT to be rejected on that basis (in the WHI study in 2002).

If you relate Plan B to anything, it will be the Norplant, Depo Provera, and “minipill” side effects. That should be on your radar screen.

You might want to bring up the poor efficacy of the drug, the fact that it doesn't reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancy or abortion.

You might want to study the relationship of pills that don't work, and birth defects, particularly the genital malformations.

There’s also the connection of the progestin drugs and osteoporosis and easier transmission of STDs.

1) Depo-Provera is medroxyprogesterone acetate which is also classified as "possibly carcinogenic to humans";

2) Dec. 16, 2003 FDA testimony by Yale's Charles J. Lockwood, M.D., ACRHD, on "Depo-Provera and the implantables" resulting in higher rates of osteoporosis, abnormal uterine bleeding, depression and a 15 pound avg. weight gain is found here;

3) the JAMA-published study showing “breast cancer risk is almost tripled for women who used Depo-Provera for 2 years or more when they were younger than 25 years old,” and the Sept. 2004 newsmedia report that women ages 18- 39 lost 22 times more bone per every year they were on Depo-Provera [Skegg, D.C.G. Noonan E.A., et. al. Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and breast cancer. JAMA. 1995:799-804].

Since Norplant uses the same type of chemical as Depo-Provera and Plan B, it can easily pose a similar risk.

This research study found more side effects of the Plan B pill(s), if used regularly:

Approximately one-third of participants discontinued the study within 6 months (mainly for bleeding problems). Menstrual complaints were reported by 70% of women. Other complaints included (in decreasing order) nausea, breast tenderness, weakness, dizziness, headache, abdominal bloating, loss of libido, depression, and vomiting. High-dose levonorgestrel pills are unsuitable for regular postcoital contraception.
[Efficacy and side effects of immediate postcoital levonorgestrel used repeatedly for contraception. Contraception. 2000 May;61(5):303-8. United Nations Development Programme/ United Nations Population Fund/World Health Organization]

Loss of libido or sex drive, and depression. Hardly good things to risk women getting, especially those who’ve been raped.

Don't believe that study published in Contraception Journal in 2000 by the United Nations Population Fund/World Health Organization? How about users of these contraceptives themselves? From this site:

Microgestin “makes me tired and depressed.”

Depo Provera: “went from 110 to 150 pounds… it also completely extinguished my sex drive.” …”i use to be a size 1 now im a size 6/7 …it made my self esteem really lower” …”I was on the dp and never had in my life did I have cramps but when I got on this shot they were a every day thing. My period got heavier and my gyn didn’t tell me all the side effects. I have gained weight fell into more depression and have hair loss now. She didn’t tell me there was a chance I could never get pregnant either after getting off of it. I have been bleeding every single day for the past 7 months and I have been off of the shot for 2 1/2 months. This shot ruined my life and I encourage everyone to not get on this birth control. And I mean everyone it might be great now but just wait!"

There's more, even from some who loved this stuff and didn't have many problems. But as consumers, women have to look at the bad reactions as well as the good:

“[Depo Provera] was wonderful at first, but I gained 30 pounds in two months, I had no sex drive, I was irritable and had terrible mood swings…It was nice to go in to the doctor once every 3 months instead of taking a pill or changing a patch and not having a period was pretty nice as well. In the end, the side effects were not worth the depression and subsequent 60 pound weight gain.”

Then there are these FDA testimonies on the correlation between increased use of emergency contraception and the drastic rise in STDs, life-threatening ectopic pregnancies and increased need for medical followup:

1) “chlamydia and gonorrhea rates have risen nearly 20 percent in [the U.S.] in the last four years, concomitant to the high profile advertising of the morning after pill which, intended or not, promote the notion that taking Plan B will make up for the lack of sexual responsibility,”

2) “Both U.K. and New Zealand have warned doctors when they had a 5.9 percent rate of unintended pregnancies which were ectopic” and “The Washington State data…indicates that the pharmacist said that 85 percent of the subjects needed medical follow-up, needed medical information. Is there concern about failure to diagnose ectopic pregnancy among this population?”

In 2002-04, UK studies in the British Medical Journal and at Nottingham University Business School showed that, after dispensing free ECs to females from 1998 to 2002,
1) “between 1998 and 2004 rates of diagnoses of infectious syphilis (primary and secondary) in males increased by 1520%”,
2) syphillis in females increased from 1999 to 2000 by 36% and 31% from ‘98 to ‘99, and
3) “gonorrhoea … rose by 102%, from 10,204 to 20,663, between 1995 and 2000, with the steepest increase (29%) between 1999 and 2000. The rises have been widespread and have been highest among older teenagers (16-19 years), at 178% for male[s] and 133% for female patients.” The uplift from 1998 to 1999 was 23%. Prior to 1998? 1996-98 were level at 13,000 cases and 1993-1995 remained 10,000 cases.

Source information found in the British Medical Journal and Nottingham University Business School links here, here, and here.

These are not coincidences to UK researchers that their 4 year experiment of making EC easily available occurred from 1998 through 2002.

Chlamydia can cause PID in women, and in men, epididymis. Researcher Paton, whose study is linked to above, states that it is “particularly prevalent amongst young women” and “the most likely STI both to remain undetected and to be correlated with the family planning variables.” Left untreated, these diseases prevent people from having children and can cause pneumonia in newborns.

Syphilis increases the risk of getting HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) by 3- to 5-fold. Herpes can't be cured, and you can infect any partner you ever have even if you’re not having an outbreak.

As of March 2004, drug-resistant [i.e., easily fatal] gonorrhea had broken out in Boston worse than it did the four prior years in Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Las Vegas.

Three weeks ago, the media reported the CDC now saying that gonorrhea is a drug-resistant “Superbug”:

Gonorrhea, which is believed to infect more than 700,000 people in the United States each year, can leave both men and women infertile and puts people at higher risk of getting the AIDS virus...Gonorrhea, spread through sexual contact, is the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States, trailing only chlamydia, which the CDC says affects more than 2.1 million people yearly in the U.S. The highest rates of infection are among sexually active teens, young adults and African-Americans. Because many people don't have obvious symptoms, they can unknowingly spread it to others.

And it was discussed in the FDA transcripts link above how some side effects of ECs–unlisted on the box–are amazingly similar to the symptoms of ectopic pregnancies, which if undiagnosed, can kill the woman.

Yes, this state's elected politicians really do favor helping women stay healthy, all right.

THE MECHANISM IS ABORTIFACIENT

There have been at least two studies which found that this EC drug does not alter or prevent ovulation and does in fact alter the uterine lining, "suggest[ing] a postfertilization contraceptive effect:"

1. Durand M, Sépala M, del Carmen Cravioto M, et al.. Late follicular phase administration of levonorgestrel as an emergency contraceptive changes the secretory pattern of glycodelin in serum and endometrium during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Contraception. 2005;71:451-457. "Levonorgestrel [LNG] taken for emergency contraception (EC) prior to the LH surge alters the luteal phase secretory pattern of glycodelin in serum and endometrium."

2. Hapangama D, Glasier AF, Baird DT. The effects of peri-ovulatory administration of levonorgestrel on the menstrual cycle. Contraception. 2001;63:123-129: "In the remaining eight women [out of 12 women studied], LNG did not affect ovulation or the cycle length, but the length of the luteal phase and the total luteal phase LH concentrations were significantly reduced. We suggest that LNG acts as an emergency contraceptive by other mechanisms as well as delaying the LH surge and interfering with ovulation."

(Emphases are all mine)

"Treatment with ECPs containing only levonorgestrel during the periovulatory phase may fail to inhibit ovulation but, nevertheless, reduce the length of the luteal phase and total luteal phase LH concentrations; this observation suggests a postfertilization contraceptive effect."

A "postfertilization contraceptive effect," to Catholics, is an abortion. It also used to be this for all medical doctors, from their medschool textbooks on up, before they rewrote the Hippocratic Oath to be "politically-correct" and allow the redefinition of when pregnancy and human life occurs (they now say pregnancy occurs at implantation only, and human life only when you're 100% born and wanted):

1. Ronan O'Rahilly, International Board Member, Nomina Embryologica ("which determines the correct terminology to be used in human embryology textbooks internationally"), and an original founder of The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryological Development, in his med school textbook, Human Embryology & Teratology (New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001, O'Rahilly and Muller)
"Just as postnatal age begins at birth, prenatal age begins at fertilization." (p. 88)

2. "In addressing a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on April 23-24, 1981, Richard V. Jaynes stated: 'To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous' (see East, 1981). Those hearings were carried out to determine the question of when human life begins. Accompanying Dr. Jaynes that day was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who conclusively reiterated that life begins at conception—and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony. One of those giving testimony during that hearing was Landrum Shettles, often called the 'father of in vitro fertilization.' Dr. Shettles noted: 'Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind' (East, 1981)"

Other med school textbook quotes:
3. Dr. M. Krieger, The Human Reproductive System 88 [1969]
"The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union into a combined cell, or zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual."

4. Dr. B. Patten, Human Embryology 43 [3d ed., 1968]
"So, therefore, it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life."

5. Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology [2nd Ed., 1977]
"The cell (a single-celled zygote) results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of human life."

Shame on our state's elected politicians. How will you sleep at night? How will you look yourself in the mirror?

May the Good Lord have mercy on those who voted for this bill, and for the governor if she does not veto this bill. Do the right thing, Governor Rell. Do not sign this bill, please.

Although I am a registered Republican, I will vote for anyone other than this governor if she signs this bill into law. And I will vote out of office the Republican House Representative from my town who voted in favor of it. And I've notified them both of this.




FOOTNOTE:
[1] A complete Plan B dose delivers 1.5 mg of levonorgestrel, or 15 times the dose of progestogen as in one Lutera or Alesse pill, or 15 days’ worth in one day. Lutera and Alesse tablets both contain 0.1 mg levonorgestrel (they also have .03 and .02 ethinyl estradiol, respectively).

Plan B gives between 12 and 30 times the dose of progestin as in one Triphasil 28, depending on the day (One month's Triphasil 28 pills contain levonorgestrel in either 50 mcg, 75 mcg, or 125 mcg doses.)

Plan B gives 10 times the levonorgestrel dose of SEASONALE's 0.15 mg daily dose.