Tag Archives: Nancy Pelosi

News

New study: multiple abortions increase risk of maternal death

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The study was published in Oxford University’s European Journal of Public Health, and the abstract is posted on the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (aka PubMed).

Here’s the abstract:

BACKGROUND:

Inconsistent definitions and incomplete data have left society largely in the dark regarding mortality risks generally associated with pregnancy and with particular outcomes, immediately after resolution and over the long-term. Population-based record-linkage studies provide an accurate means for deriving maternal mortality rate data.

METHOD:

In this Danish population-based study, records of women born between 1962 and 1993 (n = 1 001 266) were examined to identify associations between patterns of pregnancy resolution and mortality rates across 25 years.

RESULTS:

With statistical controls for number of pregnancies, birth year and age at last pregnancy, the combination of induced abortion(s) and natural loss(es) was associated with more than three times higher mortality rate than only birth(s). Moderate risks were identified with only induced abortion, only natural loss and having experienced all outcomes compared with only birth(s). Risk of death was more than six times greater among women who had never been pregnant compared with those who only had birth(s). Increased risks of death were 45%, 114% and 191% for 1, 2 and 3 abortions, respectively, compared with no abortions after controlling for other reproductive outcomes and last pregnancy age. Increased risks of death were equal to 44%, 86% and 150% for 1, 2 and 3 natural losses, respectively, compared with none after including statistical controls. Finally, decreased mortality risks were observed for women who had experienced two and three or more births compared with no births.

Life Site News adds more:

A single induced abortion increases the risk of maternal death by 45 percent compared to women with no history of abortion, according to a new study of all women of reproductive age in Denmark over a 25 year period.

The study found that each additional abortion is associated with an even higher death rate. Women who had two abortions were 114 percent more likely to die during the period examined, and women had three or more abortions had a 192 percent increased risk of death.

Elevated rates of death were also observed among women who experienced miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or other natural losses. Among women with a history of multiple pregnancies, women with a history of both abortions and natural losses, but no live births, had the highest mortality rate.

Women who had never been pregnant had the highest mortality rate overall.

However, women with a history of successful deliveries were the least likely to die during the 25 years examined.

The study is the second record linkage analysis of Danish mortality data to be published this month.

The earlier study was limited to comparing mortality rates following only the first pregnancy outcome. It found that abortion of a first pregnancy was associated with a higher rate of death compared to death rates among women who delivered a first pregnancy. The higher death rate among women who had abortions persisted for each of the first ten years following the first pregnancy outcome.

[…]Dr. Reardon is the director of the Elliot Institute, which funds research related to abortion. He believes further research is needed to explore how the outcomes observed in this latest study may be influenced by abortion’s impact on natural pregnancy losses. A new population study from Finland, for example, has found that abortion is associated with higher rates of preterm delivery, low birth weight delivery, and perinatal deaths in subsequent pregnancies.

“We knew from our previous studies of low income women in California that women who have multiple pregnancy outcomes, such as having a history of both abortion and miscarriage, have significantly different mortality rates,” Reardon said.

”But this new study is the first to examine how each experience with abortion or miscarriage contributes to higher mortality rates,” Reardon observed.

“This is called a ‘dose effect’ because each exposure, or ‘dose,’ is seen to produce more of the same effect, which is what one would expect if there is a cause-effect relationship,” he said.

Reardon believes that a truer picture of the benefits of childbirth and the risks of abortion and pregnancy loss is now emerging because of a shift to more reliable record linkage studies. Such studies have been conducted in Finland, Denmark and the United States.

Is this the only bad effect of abortion on women’s health?

Let’s see the studies and then we’ll decide.

From Life News.

Excerpt:

A new study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention in February reported a very statistically significant increased risk of breast cancer for women with previous abortions as opposed to women who have never had one.

The study, consisting of 1,351 women and led by researcher Ai-Ren Jiang, reported a statistically significant 1.52-fold elevation in risk for women with induced abortions and a “significant dose-response relationship between (the risk) for breast cancer and number of induced abortions,” meaning the risk climbed with a higher number of previous abortions.

For premenopausal women who have had abortions, the numbers were relatively small, and the observed 16% risk elevation was not statistically significant. However, for those with three or more abortions, the risk climbed to a statistically significant 1.55-fold elevation.

“The results have revealed that induced abortion was related to increased risk of breast caner. Premenopausal women who had ≥3 times of induced abortion were at increased crude odds ratio (OR) (2.41, 95%CI: 1.09-5.42) and adjusted-OR (1.55, 95%CI: 1.15-5.68),” they wrote. “Postmenopausal women with a previous induced abortion were at increased crude OR (2.04, 95%CI: 1.48-2.81) and adjusted-OR (1.82, 95%CI: 1.30-2.54), and there was a significant increase trend in OR with number of induced abortions (p for trend: 0.0001).”

[…][A] Chinese study in 1995 by L. Bu and colleagues, including Janet Daling of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, reported a statistically significant 4.5-fold elevated risk among women with previous induced abortions who developed breast cancer at or before age 35, compared to older women (who experienced a statistically significant 2.5-fold elevated risk)

Here’s the latest study from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), showing that excessive consumption of alcohol is a rish factor for breast cancer.

Excerpt:

Consumption of 3 to 6 alcoholic drinks per week is associated with a small increase in the risk of breast cancer, and consumption in both earlier and later adult life is also associated with an increased risk, according to a study in the November 2 issue of JAMA.

“In many studies, higher consumption of alcohol has been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. However, the effect of low levels of drinking as is common in the United States has not been well quantified,” according to background information in the article. “In addition, the role of drinking patterns (i.e., frequency of drinking and ‘binge’ drinking) and consumption at different times of adult life are not well understood.”

Wendy Y. Chen, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues examined the association of breast cancer with alcohol consumption during adult life, including quantity, frequency, and age at consumption. The study included 105,986 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study who were followed up from 1980 until 2008 with an early adult alcohol assessment and 8 updated alcohol assessments. The primary outcome the researchers measured was the risk of developing invasive breast cancer.

During the follow-up period, there were 7,690 cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosed among the study participants. Analyses of data indicated that a low level of alcohol consumption (5.0 to 9.9 grams per day, equivalent to 3-6 glasses of wine per week) was modestly but statistically significantly associated with a 15 percent increased risk of breast cancer. In addition, women who consumed at least 30 grams of alcohol daily on average (at least 2 drinks per day) had a 51 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared with women who never consumed alcohol.

The researchers also found that when examined separately, alcohol consumption levels at ages 18 to 40 years and after age 40 years were both strongly associated with breast cancer risk. The association with drinking in early adult life still persisted even after controlling for alcohol intake after age 40 years.

Binge drinking, but not frequency of drinking, was also associated with breast cancer risk after controlling for cumulative alcohol intake.

Now let’s take a look at some other factors that raise the risk of breast cancer.

Abortion and breast cancer

Many studies show a link between abortion and breast cancer.

Study 1: (September 2010)

Based on the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2/neu (HER2), breast cancer is classified into several subtypes: luminal A (ER+ and/or PR+, HER2-), luminal B (ER+ and/or PR+, HER2+), HER2-overexpressing (ER-, PR-, and HER2+) and triple-negative (ER-, PR-, and HER2-). The aim of this case-control study is to determine reproductive factors associated with breast cancer subtypes in Chinese women. A total of 1,417 patients diagnosed with breast cancer in the First Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, China between 2001 and 2009 and 1,587 matched controls without a prior breast cancer were enrolled.

[…]Postmenopause and spontaneous abortion were inversely associated with the risk of luminal tumors. By contrast, multiparity, family history of breast cancer and induced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer.

Study 2: (March 2010)

OBJECTIVE: To explore the risk factors of breast cancer for better control and prevention of the malignancy.

METHODS: The clinical data of 232 patients with pathologically established breast cancer were investigated in this 1:1 case-control study to identify the risk factors of breast cancer.

RESULTS: The history of benign breast diseases, family history of carcinoma andmultiple abortions were the statistically significant risk factors of breast cancer, while breast feeding was the protective factor.

CONCLUSION: A history of benign breast diseases, family history of carcinoma and multiple abortions are all risk factors of breast cancer.

But wait, there’s more.

Birth control pills

Many studies showed that taking birth control pills caused an increased risk of breast cancer.

Study 1: (March 2003)

RESULTS: Among the youngest age group (<35 years, n = 545), significant predictors of risk included African-American race (RR = 2.66: 95% CI 1.4-4.9) and recent use of oral contraceptives (RR = 2.26; 95% CI 1.4-3.6). Although these relationships were strongest for estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) tumors (RRs of 3.30 for race and 3.56 for recent oral contraceptive use), these associations were also apparent for young women with ER+ tumors. Delayed childbearing was a risk factor for ER+ tumors among the older premenopausal women (Ptrend < 0.01), but not for women <35 years in whom early childbearing was associated with an increased risk, reflecting a short-term increase in risk immediately following a birth.

Study 2: (October 2008)

Oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer (95% confidence interval, 1.4-4.3) and no significantly increased risk for non-triple-negative breast cancer (Pheterogeneity = 0.008). Furthermore, the risk among oral contraceptive users conferred by longer oral contraceptive duration and by more recent use was significantly greater for triple-negative breast cancer than non-triple-negative breast cancer (Pheterogeneity = 0.02 and 0.01, respectively).

Where did all of this birth control pill usage and aborting unborn children coming from? Why are women doing it so often? 

Why are these risk factors so prevalent today?

Look at this New York Times article by feminist professor Nancy Bauer.

Excerpt:

If there’s anything that feminism has bequeathed to young women of means, it’s that power is their birthright.  Visit an American college campus on a Monday morning and you’ll find any number of amazingly ambitious and talented young women wielding their brain power, determined not to let anything — including a relationship with some needy, dependent man — get in their way. Come back on a party night, and you’ll find many of these same girls (they stopped calling themselves “women” years ago) wielding their sexual power, dressed as provocatively as they dare, matching the guys drink for drink — and then hook-up for hook-up.

The article was written by:

Nancy Bauer is associate professor and chair of philosophy at Tufts University. She is the author of “Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, and Feminism,” and is currently completing a new book, “How to Do Things With Pornography.”

Do you think that her attitude to sex would cause women to have more abortions, or less abortions, when compared to chastity before marriage, followed by lifelong married love? I think her plan results in more abortions. And now we know what harm that causes to women.

The total cost for breast cancer treatment, which raises medical insurance premiums (private health care) or taxes (single-payer health care), has been estimated to be between $1.8 billion and $3.8 billion dollars. In addition, the government spends billions of dollars each year on breast cancer research. All of this spending is costing taxpayers a lot of money, as people demand more and more government funding of breast cancer research and breast cancer treatment (with either private or single-payer health care). Furthermore, a recent study found that the annual cost of the breakdown of marriage and family was $112 billion a year. Don’t tell me that feminism was good for society. It’s a disaster. And we are all paying for it.

Polemics

Ex-CIA chief Jose Rodriguez says Nancy Pelosi lied about waterboarding

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Story from the Daily Beast.

Excerpt:

The CIA’s former top spook, unable for years to respond publicly to criticism of his role in waterboarding terrorist suspects after 9/11, is finally getting the chance to answer his critics. And to launch a counterattack.

In a memoir being published Monday and obtained by The Daily Beast, the former CIA official Jose Rodriguez defends the waterboarding program and says he was right in 2005 to order the destruction of videotapes of the harsh interrogation sessions, in which suspected Al Qaeda terrorists were held down and subjected to a simulated drowning.

In his book, Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives, Rodriguez, a career undercover CIA officer who headed the agency’s clandestine services from 2004 until his retirement in 2007, tries to turn the table on his critics, identifying many people—in and out of the United States government—who, he says, have hindered the fight against Al Qaeda and other international terrorist networks.

According to Rodriguez, Nancy Pelosi lied when she claimed she was not informed about the use of waterboarding:

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other CIA critics in Congress. Rodriguez challenges Pelosi’s assertion that, while a ranking member of the House intelligence committee after 9/11, she was not informed in detail about the use of waterboarding.

“Pelosi said that we only briefly mentioned waterboarding and left the impression that it had not been used,” Rodriguez writes, insisting that the California Democrat was fully briefed—by Rodriguez himself—about waterboarding and its use. “ He says that Pelosi was explicitly briefed on waterboarding and posed no objection to the technique. “I know she got it.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that she, like almost all Americans less than a year after, wanted us to be aggressive to make sure that Al Qaeda wasn’t able to replicate their attack.” He writes that “Pelosi was another member of Congress reinventing the truth.”

And he takes a shot at the Obama administration:

The Obama administration. Rodriguez says President Obama has abandoned interrogation techniques—including waterboarding—that allowed the CIA to prevent terrorist attacks after 9/11. He said the administration has become too reliant instead of the use of missile-armed drones in Pakistan and elsewhere to kill, instead of to capture, terrorists.

“Drones can be a highly effective way of dealing with high-priority targets,” Rodriguez writes. “But they should not become the drug of choice for an administration that is afraid to use successful, legal and safe tactics of the past.” He adds, “Needless to say, there is no opportunity to interrogate or learn anything from a suspect who is vaporized by a missile launched by a keystroke executed thousands of miles away.”

Right Scoop posted an interview with Jose Rodriguez, in which he explains that he personally briefed Pelosi on the waterboarding.

News

Paul Ryan questions Chief Actuaries of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

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I found all of this stuff on the House Budget Committee web site.

Medicare and Medicaid

Paul Ryan interviews Richard Foster, Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Excerpt of transcript:

HBC CHAIRMAN RYAN: As you may know, I’ve been working across the aisle with a member of the Oregon delegation from the Senate on a premium support plan that uses competitive bidding to help determine the contribution. Competitive bidding we’ve seen has worked well in Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage.  I’d like to get your thoughts on choice and competition as it relates to these previous successful reform plans. Given what we’ve seen in these aspects of Medicare, do you believe that competitive bidding is a process that can be successfully applied Medicare-wide?

CMS CHIEF ACTUARY FOSTER: Yes, I think it can. Obviously, it would represent a large change from the status quo, but I think it could work. We’ve seen the signs of this – you mentioned the Part D prescription drug program, for example, where the different drug plans compete against each other on the quality of their benefit package and the premium level. And we’ve seen – every year since Part D started – a migration of beneficiaries to more efficient plans with lower premiums. So that can help. We’ve also seen for durable medical equipment that competitive bidding, in this particular area of Fee-For-Service Medicare, reduced prices that we had to pay by 40 percent.

RYAN: By forty percent?

FOSTER: Forty percent, that’s right.

RYAN: Those are the kinds of cost savings we’re going to have to achieve if want to make good on the promise of the Medicare guarantee.  This should not be a partisan issue. Competitive bidding is something Alice Rivlin has been a champion of, Ron Wyden has been talking about, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and more. There is a lot of data out there that competitive bidding when applied Medicare-wide can achieve the benefit of keeping these benefits going while attacking the root cause of cost growth.

It sounds to me like there is a real crisis, that Ryan has a plan to solve it, and that the person who is the most aware of the finances of these two entitlements agrees with Ryan.

Social Security

Paul Ryan interviews Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration.

Excerpt of transcript:

HBC CHAIRMAN RYAN:  If we do [nothing], then we have an across-the-board cut of about 23 percent that occurs in benefits. Is that correct?

SSA CHIEF ACTUARY GOSS: Exactly… The Commissioner standing at that time would simply have 77 cents available for every dollar of scheduled benefits, and would not be permitted to spend more than that. We do not have borrowing authority. So a decision would have to be made about who would get the money. We could have an across-the-board 23% cut immediately, or a Commissioner could say, ‘Well we’re not going to pay the March benefits in March. We’ll wait until April – wait until more revenues come in to allow full payment a month late.’ After a few months we would perhaps then have to start paying benefits twomonths late. So this would be a way that it could be handled. Of course, if people have to pay rent on time, that would be a difficulty. There’s no easy way out on this… We hope and pray that Congress would indeed act well before we ever hit the Trust Fund reserve exhaustion.

RYAN: Given that we have this abrupt 23% cut that occurs in law – current law – is it not wise so start reforming now, sooner, so that the distribution of the change is spread more broadly and evenly across income cohorts? Let me ask it this way: does that abrupt 23% cut hit current senior cohorts? A person who is turning 62, or 65 today – that affects them as well, correct?

GOSS: It certainly would. They would be at an older age at that time but clearly it would affect them. That is assuming that we wait and do absolutely nothing until that point.

RYAN: So if one provides reforms soon, could you not prevent these kinds of effects from hitting those current cohorts? Could you not phase reforms in gradually that prevent that 23% cut from happening so it doesn’t affect people who are currently in or near retirement? Could you structure reforms that prevent that from happening if you act sooner?

GOSS: Absolutely. We have a number of proposals – including yours Chairman Ryan – and many other proposals that would take exactly that approach. Our trustees and everybody who speaks on this has opined extensively about the value of acting sooner rather than later, so that we can have gradual changes phased in and we have more options if we act relatively soon.

In 2006, Nancy Pelosi was asked when she would be willing to fix these entitlement programs. Her reply? “Never. Is never good enough for you?“. Democrats hate children – they want to pile debt upon debt onto future generations, who will not even have mothers and fathers to take care of them. First they smash the family with no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage. Then they run up trillions and trillions of dollars in debt handing out bailouts and green energy grants to their election fundraisers. It’s sick.