Using the pill to prevent pregnancy

[OurLadyPray4US]

Let’s say that the chance of a disease ordinarily is 1 in 10 million.

Had the base chance of disease been 1 in 1000, - well that’s entirely a different situation, since now, taking the drug raises the chance to 1 in 10, which is getting too close for comfort.

You need to know the absolute risk, not just the relative risk, to make a rational decision.

Unfortunately, breast cancer is an extremely common disease in the USA and in the developed countries. A woman’s base chance of getting breast cancer is very high.

A woman’s lifetime risk of getting breast cancer, in the USA, is currently 12.8% or about 1 in 8. One in 8 women will get diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime.

Another way of quantifying absolute risk is to say, how many women per 100,000 women will get a new diagnosis of breast cancer, in every given year. I don’t have that data specifically for the USA, but for developed countries as an aggregate, the number is 66.4. This means that in a city with 100,000 female residents, 66.4 women will come down with a new case of breast cancer, in every year. The actual number of women suffering with breast cancer at any given time, including those who perhaps got diagnosed last year or even several years earlier, and are currently still suffering of breast cancer, is of course higher than 66.4.