Earlier today I wrote about how Brother Joe Kamis has reversed himself and is allowing Catholic Schools in the diocese to donate to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
But I thought he could use some encouragement and information on this issue, and not just from me.
Please contact him and politely ask him to rethink his position based on some of the considerations listed below. Why? Well, first of all he appears to have made a ill informed decision. Second, his decision could start a trend in other dioceses. Lastly, the last thing we need is for the Church to help keep the lights on at PP by funding the Susan G. Komen foundation.
His contact information:
cso@catholiccincinnati.org
Phone: (513) 421-3131
Please call or e-mail him and kindly ask him to reverse his decision. But please, keep it positive, and don't insult him. If you can't do that, then please don't contact him. He seems to have well intentions but is simply misinformed about the situation.
Please make any or some of the following points:
1. A study published yesterday that suggests that having had an abortion is the "best predictor of breast cancer". Yet Komen is helping to keep the lights for the largest provider of abortions in the US, which seems to be counterproductive in the long run.
2. Komen's agreement to use the money for research allows them to free up funds to give to PP, and giving money to PP for mammograms ultimately helps PP to keep the lights on and abortion machines running.
3. There are other organizations researching cancer besides the Susan G. Komen foundation - they could use the money instead of the Komen foundation.
4. The money PP receives from the Komen Foundation frees up their other funds to open new clinics. Christians in Aurora, IL are fighting the opening of a new PP clinic, and as long as Komen and other help keep the lights on, PP will be able to use their funds to open new clinics elsewhere as well.
5. Komen is getting a free pass for keeping the lights on at Planned Parenthood, and contributing to them emboldens them.
Edited:
I think the comment below describes a different study than the one I referenced in my post.
Here is information about the study I referenced:
http://www.earnedmedia.org/abc1003.htm
And a quote from the news release:
"In a study published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Patrick Carroll of London's Pension and Population Research Institute reports that the rate of abortion was the "best predictor of breast cancer" among several included in his study. Fertility rates also proved useful in predicting the incidence of breast cancer."
I think the person below is describing a different study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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Original comment
You claim "A study published yesterday that suggests that having had an abortion is the 'best predictor of breast cancer'." The report of that study made no such claim. Here's the press release from the investigators involved describing the study...
In Seattle, Washington, researchers at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center believe they have identified a source of this protective effect: fetal cells "transplanted" to the mother before birth.
Their findings are presented in the October 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. [www.accr.org]
The ability of cells from a growing fetus to take up long-term residence within its mother is a phenomenon called fetal microchimerism. According to the researchers, while fetal microchimerism has been implicated as a mechanism of autoimmune disease, it may also benefit mothers by putting the immune system on alert for malignant cells to destroy.
To test the idea, the researchers recruited 82 women, 35 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Approximately two-thirds of the women studied have had children, and more than half of the participants had given birth to at least one son. The researchers took blood samples from each participant and searched them for male DNA, as they reasoned it is a relatively definitive matter to detect the male Y chromosome amid the mother's native - and obviously female - cells within a blood sample.
Among the women with breast cancer, only five had male DNA in their bloodstream. Three of the five previously gave birth to sons, one had had an abortion and the other had never been knowingly pregnant. In total, about 14 percent of all women in the breast cancer group had male DNA in their bloodstream compared to 43 percent of women in the non-breast cancer group.
"Our research found that these persisting fetal cells may be giving a woman an edge against developing breast cancer," said lead author Vijayakrishna K. Gadi, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Washington and research associate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "This experiment of nature is all the more fascinating because for years doctors treated a number of different cancers by transplanting cells from one person to another."
According to Dr. Gadi, these findings could provide a starting point for future research on the role of fetal microchimerism in the prevention of cancer. In addition, there are other reasons for male DNA to be in a woman's peripheral blood, such as miscarriage and abortion - or possibly even blood transfusion or a male twin that was reabsorbed into the womb at an early stage of the pregnancy.
Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health and Amgen, Inc. Breast cancer patients were recruited through a breast cancer specialty clinic at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, which is affiliated with both the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine.
One of the 82 women in the study who had breast cancer had had an abortion. The study makes no claim about a relationship, causal or associative, between breast cancer and abortion. Someone has misled you.
One of the most compelling details in the ongoing saga of the Komen/PP relationship was when Eve Sanchez Silver quit KOMEN itself because Komen was in bed with PP which also denies the ABC link. Here's the press release:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prwebxml161187.php
She was a member of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's National Hispanic/Latina Advisory Council (SGK) and she is Director of Cinta Latina Research. Silver survived BC twice, and resigned from Komen after learning that Komen's affiliates help fund Planned Parenthood.
Silver said when she resigned,
"I can not reconcile The Foundation's decision to affirm life with one hand and support its destruction with the other. It makes me wonder what other abortion related agendas SGK may be supporting, like the black-out on the 16 statistically significant epidemiological studies linking abortion to breast cancer. Is one hand washing the other?"