The Perils of Politicizing Breast Cancer

There’s nothing to be gained by politicizing women’s health, but there’s a lot to lose.

Consider this: Two years ago, the Susan G. Komen Foundation walked into a hornet’s nest when it did something that was fundamentally opposed tn-WOMAN-AND-DOCTOR-large570o its mission. It jumped into a controversy that was all about politics and nothing about breast cancer patients and survivors.

After years of subsidizing cancer screenings and education in Planned Parenthood clinics, the foundation announced it would no longer fund these programs. The move came at a time when right-wing opposition to Planned Parenthood was exploding in state legislatures and in Congress.

Here’s what happened next, according to the L.A. Times:

The decision by the nation’s leading breast cancer charity to defund the nation’s leading provider of health services to women sparked a predictable uproar, and Komen reversed the decision after only three days.

But the damage was immediate and, plainly, lasting. It turned out that the original decision had been driven by Karen Handel, the organization’s vice president for public policy, who had joined Komen after losing a race for governor of Georgia on an extremist anti-abortion platform. She resigned from Komen days after the reversal.

As the leader of a national policy and advocacy organization, I toil in the political weeds, and I can tell you, it’s an enormously complex and challenging environment. You can’t navigate these waters with a single press release or announcement.

The Komen foundation may have thought they could earn some goodwill from a vocal and powerful segment of conservative lawmakers by signing on to their rejection of Planned Parenthood. They didn’t see themselves as transforming into a political lobby. They were just going to be a little bit political for a day or two.

That didn’t work out too well. In the wake of the move against Planned Parenthood, the foundation’s income from contributions, sponsors and entry fees for events like their signature Race for the Cure dropped by $77 million, or 22% of their income from the previous year.

Frankly, that’s a fitting response to Komen’s attempt to use the grief and courage of breast cancer patients as a means of scoring political points against a perceived “liberal” enemy. Nobody asks a woman who comes to a reproductive health clinic to declare her party affiliation, and no one who looks to a foundation that promotes women’s health for assistance should be made to feel like a player in a political drama.

An editorial by Maureen Shaw Kennedy, MA, RN in the American Journal of Nursing put it this way:

If state efforts to cut all funding for Planned Parenthood and its affiliates succeed, who will provide the safety net for the 3 million Americans, largely women, who rely on these entities for health care annually? Those in the defunding camp claim that these women can get health care elsewhere, but why must they be forced to do that? The real question is, why should women’s access to health services be dependent on whatever ideologies currently prevail among legislators?

It wasn’t so long ago that women were prohibited from voting or owning property. We laugh now at the ridiculousness of this — but have we really progressed all that much if women’s health and lifestyle choices can still be subject to the approval of others?

Don’t get me wrong. I strongly believe in political engagement, speaking truth to power and standing up to anyone who would deny women any aspect of their reproductive health care needs. But the personal isn’t always the political — and that’s my message for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October. To read all posts in the series, visit here.

Originally published on Terry O’Neill’s Huffington Post blog on 10/22/2014

6 responses to “The Perils of Politicizing Breast Cancer

  1. The Komen Foundation could have repaired some of the damage if they had sent a letter of apology to Planned Parenthood. But they did not. All they did was send a PR letter to former contributors apologizing for what happened. That’s not good enough.

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  3. First, one must establish that the individual was actually ingesting AAS at
    the time that the habits occurred. False-negatives may
    come up as a end result of men typically deny their AAS use to
    clinicians,106 and false-positives might occur in forensic settings the
    place a man may falsely declare AAS use in the hopes that an AAS protection would possibly
    characterize a mitigating factor in his final criminal penalty.
    Hurt reduction strategies are wanted to assist the hundreds
    of thousands of males using these compounds who’re currently unable or
    without the desire to give up.
    Therapy may also forestall zits scarring which is ready to, obviously, be permanent even after stopping AAS use.
    Healthcare providers primarily prescribe anabolic steroids to deal with low testosterone (male hypogonadism).
    However they use it for other situations as well, similar to to stimulate muscle
    development for folks with sure cancers or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
    He first began utilizing anabolic steroids over
    thirty years in the past and has used these agents in cycles up until the present day.
    He had used numerous esters of injectable testosterone consistently since beginning this regime.
    Different examples of anabolic steroids used included trenbolone,
    nandrolone decanoate, methenolone, stanozolol (Winstrol),
    boldenone undecylenate (Equipoise), oxymetholone (Anadrol), metandienone
    (Dianabol), and fluoxymesterone (Halotesin). Almost half of internet sites really helpful particular AAS
    “cycles” or “stacks” at doses twofold to fourfold higher
    than medically recommended, but lower than a 3rd described the risk with
    AAS use with most unwanted facet effects characterized as “mild” (Cordaro et al., 2011).

    Given that 12% of subjects reported use of hCG on-cycle,
    and hCG can preserve some spermatogenesis throughout gonadotropin suppression (185),
    a slightly lower fraction of men might need developed azoo- or
    oligozoospermia on this study than expected. Serum creatinine levels are generally used to estimate the glomerular
    filtration fee (eGFR) utilizing formulation such because the Continual Kidney Illness Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI)
    equation (157). The eGFR is an effective and impartial predictor of all-cause and
    cardiovascular mortality and kidney failure in a broad range of populations (158).

    “After 1935 one of the best method of discovering and measuring the protein-building motion of androgenic steroids in humans proved to be metabolic steadiness research. If a steroid didn’t exhibit a more favorable anabolic/androgenic ratio than Testosterone, it will have been deserted for any software other than pure androgen replacement in males (e.g. Proviron). It can set off mood swings, fatigue, restlessness, achy muscle tissue, and melancholy. If you had been taking steroids to deal with an sickness, those signs may come again, too. Apoptosis, which is a form of programmed cell dying, has additionally been linked to the damage attributable to anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs) [19, 20, 21]. Research have shown that supraphysiological concentrations of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs) can induce neurotoxicity by involving the apoptotic process and neurodegeneration [20].
    Indeed, Antonio et al. speculate that upregulation could occur with the administration of pharmacological quantities of androgens, changing muscles that normally have a minor, or no response, to muscle tissue with enhanced androgen responsiveness. Androgen use has become a major public well being concern as a result of transition of use of androgens from strictly sports to a a lot wider spectrum of the population. Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are steroidal androgens which embrace pure androgens similar to male intercourse hormone testosterone or could be synthetic to mimic the motion of the endogenous male hormone. For instance, athletes abuse anabolic steroids to boost efficiency and prolong endurance.
    In addition, the AAS-treated males efficiently copulated with the resident feminine. In contrast, control males not only did not display aggression, but also were rendered submissive and did not copulate with the resident female. This rise of faux, badly replicates and ‘Legal steroids for muscle gain’ alternatives in the market
    requires vigilance and informed decisions to make sure customers have a clear understanding of the true power and effectiveness
    of the steroids they choose. Steroids are commonly used within the health industry, but a concerning concern has emerged –
    the rise of counterfeit and ‘legal’ options that bear the names of actual steroids.

    Anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS) are a
    category of natural and artificial hormones that
    owe their name to their chemical structure (the steroid nucleus, see Determine 1) and the biological
    results (anabolic and androgenic) they induce. Anabolic refers to the skeletal muscle-building properties of AAS,
    whereas androgenic refers again to the induction and upkeep of male secondary
    sexual characteristics (which in principle contains the anabolic
    action, thereby rendering the time period an oxymoron (1)).

    It is widely used therapeutically, in various esterified varieties, as
    alternative remedy in male hypogonadism. Testosterone, and a select few
    different AAS such as nandrolone and oxandrolone, might also be prescribed for other medical
    conditions (e.g., osteoporosis or aplastic anemia).

    Besides this legitimate medical use, AAS are extensively used – or
    quite, abused – for their muscle-building and strength-increasing properties in dosages far exceeding
    those used therapeutically. For brevity, in the the rest of this evaluation we make use of the term ‘AAS use’
    to check with the nonmedical high-dose abuse of AAS. Regardless Of the well-documented effects of testosterone and its synthetic derivatives—collectively termed anabolic androgenic steroids (AASs)—on the musculoskeletal system,
    the therapeutic use of those agents has acquired restricted investigation within the field of orthopaedic surgical procedure.

    A believable interpretation is that the hormonal and behavioral cues emanating from the females had been adequate
    to suppress aggression that sometimes follows physical
    provocation in AAS-treated pubertal males. Thus, the
    absence of sexually eliciting stimulus qualities emanating from the feminine can induce a state of frustration that leads to an escalation in aggression (Amsel, 1962, 1990).

    The incapability to copulate does not induce aggression in course of females by AAS-treated males, as evidenced by lack of aggression by pubertal AAS-treated
    males in path of sexually receptive females
    with occluded vaginas (Cunningham and McGinnis, 2007). Instead, they continued
    to mount the female although they have been prevented from reaching either intromissions or ejaculation. This could also
    be an indication that AAS induces an altered motivational state that’s mirrored in persistence of conduct
    in the absence of reward. Pubertal AAS publicity in rodent fashions
    has been proven to induce structural modifications in the hippocampus and amygdala, along
    with elevated activity of the amygdala (Costine et al., 2010; Cunningham et al., 2007; Oberlander and
    Henderson, 2012).

  4. Deca-Durabolin has additional unique advantages like boosting immunity,
    bone density, and joint well being, which could be a variety of the primary reasons people use it.
    Deca will assist in strength and mass gains without worrying about estrogenic unwanted effects.
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    functions, similar to memory, aggressiveness, anxiousness and melancholy, particularly in predisposed people
    [48,49,50,51,52]. The underlying mechanisms contain neurotransmission by affecting the synthesis
    and degradation of neurotransmitters, in addition to
    neurotransmitter metabolism [53]. In addition, an animal
    research instructed that long-term administration of ND leads to
    anxiolytic behavior and reminiscence impairment. Continual administration of
    excessive doses of AASs is expounded to anxiety-like behavior through the corticotrophin launch factor by enhancing GABAergic inhibitory effects from the central amygdala onto the mattress nucleus of the
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    Sufferers on testosterone ought to be monitored for their response to treatment and
    antagonistic results 3 to 6 months after
    initiation of remedy and then every year, particularly for cardiac opposed occasions.
    Women treated with testosterone for breast cancer require monitoring for indicators of
    virilization. Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS), additionally merely known as
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    together with muscle.
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    aromatase to estradiol (E2), which binds to the estrogen receptor (ER).
    Another weaker endogenous androgen, androstenediol, additionally binds to estrogen receptors (ER).
    These doses are much larger than those prescribed by
    medical doctors for medical causes. These can include coronary heart
    and blood vessels issues, liver disease, reproductive organ harm and severe mood swings.
    In men, its ranges enhance during puberty to advertise the development of male sex traits, corresponding to physique hair development,
    a deeper voice, intercourse drive, and elevated peak and muscle mass.
    Lastly, it may be very important perceive that
    these values aren’t the end-all-be-all in figuring out the capabilities of an anabolic
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    In ladies, AAS use has been linked to cardiovascular impairments, with
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    Before initiating remedy with testosterone, analysis of hypogonadism require confirmation by measuring
    early morning testosterone levels on two separate days.

    Anabolic androgenic steroids (AASs) are group of compounds that include endogenous androgens, most significantly testosterone,
    and their artificial derivatives[1]. Testosterone and synthetic AASs have been commonly used for his or her androgenic masculinizing
    effects leading to male secondary traits, in addition to anabolic skeletal muscle building effects as a
    end result of enhanced protein utilization and synthesis mechanisms[2,3].

    AASs are medically indicated in situations similar
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    fiber measurement and power. Abuse of AASs for aesthetic purposes and athletic efficiency enchancment has surged as a
    public well being downside in the past few a long time among each skilled and recreational athletes and bodybuilders[5,6].
    Unmodified testosterone is quickly metabolized when administered
    orally or parenterally and exerts an identical proportion of anabolic and
    androgenic results. Chemical modifications of testosterone allow extended effective blood concentrations and changes to its
    pharmacodynamic properties, therefore enhancing desired anabolic or androgenic
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    However, prosecutions of intent to produce have been made of individuals found
    in possession of large portions of these substances and not
    using a prescription for them. A Home Office licence is required for
    importation and exportation of anabolic steroids, besides in instances
    of small portions for legitimate functions.
    The potential unwanted side effects of anabolic steroid misuse are important
    and persistent. Well Being care providers should concentrate
    on patients vulnerable to anabolic-androgenic steroid misuse.
    Ongoing affected person training in regards to the potential side effects ought to be provided for patients who take androgens for therapeutic
    use.
    Non-genomic pathways are essential too, the best-characterized example being the allosteric
    modulation of GABAA receptor function by anabolic steroids, presumably via a putative binding web site for anabolic
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    receptor. Induction of aggression by anabolic steroids seems to overlap with neural circuits
    underlying the regulation of aggression by endogenous androgens, these being techniques using GABA, serotonin and
    arginine vasopressin. A current cause for concern is the current manufacture of analogues of established
    anabolic steroids to faucet into the bodybuilding market.
    These steroids are provided for oral administration, and are subsequently topic to first-pass metabolism,
    a vital factor as to the extent the steroid is deactivated or transformed to a
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