Looking into the future the Pelican feeding its young from a self-induced wound in its own breast (as depicted, mysteriously, on the state flag of Louisiana) is accepted as an appropriate symbol of both self-sacrifice and rebirth. Through his selfless efforts, man is raised from the slavery of ignorance to the condition of freedom conferred by wisdom. Given the current state of affairs in Louisiana, one hopes that the understanding of the Pelican as a symbol shall point the way towards a new consciousness of ourselves as a whole, and lead us to face our futures with strength, grace, wisdom and faith, to learn from our mistakes and carry our successes and zest for living to future generations.

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Frequent Antibiotic Use May Cause Breast Cancer

1. Feb. 17, 2004
2. By Brad Evenson
3. Source: The Province

SEATTLE – Women who use a lot of antibiotics appear to face a heightened risk of breast cancer, a new U.S. study has found.

The study, by researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle, said women who used antibiotics of any kind for a total of 500 days or more over nearly two decades faces a 1.5 times greater risk of developing the disease than women who took none.

Women who filled more than 25 prescriptions over an average of 17 years were twice as likely to get the disease.

Lead researcher Christine Velicer and her colleagues made the link by reviewing medical data from 10,219 women enrolled in a state health plan.

The study will appear this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study cases included 2,266 women older than 19 years with primary, invasive, breast cancer enrolled in the health plan, and 7,953 randomly selected female health plan members who did not have breast cancer in the control group. It compared the antibiotic use of both groups.

“The strength of the association is big and real,” said co-author Stephen Taplin, a senior scientist at the National Cancer institute. “It’s more than you would expect by chance alone.”

The finding is raising significant concern because antibiotics are widely over-prescribed is the [U.S.] and other countries.

Health Canada and other agencies have campaigned for years to urge restraint in their use. Over-prescription has led to drug-resistant bacteria such a methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is endemic in many provinces.

The report said increasing the cumulative days of antibiotic use was also associated with death due to breast cancer, even when the researchers took age, length or enrolment and the use of hormone replacement therapy into account.

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in Canada and the second leading cause of cancer death.

The lifetime risk of developing invasive breast cancer has been estimated at one in eight, while the lifetime risk of dying of the disease is about one in 28, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.