Product Liability Attorney Blog

If you think that you have already learned all there is to know about the side effects associated with birth control pills like Yaz, you are in for a real surprise. A new study is suggesting that women’s use of birth control pills may be linked to the increasing cases of prostate cancer developing in men.

The study, which was published on November 15, 2011, in the British Medical Journal's BMJ Open, has found that countries that contain the highest number of women taking birth control pills like Yaz have a larger number of men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. This is the first time researchers have discovered a link between birth control pills and prostate cancer — a link that seems highly unlikely, since birth control pills are taken by women and prostate cancer is male condition.

So far, it is not clear just how oral contraceptives like Yaz are linked to prostate cancer; however, researchers believe that the estrogen hormones that are released through urine and then recycled through the water supply could be the culprit.

“There’s reason to suggest there’s an environmental component (to prostate cancer) and not solely genetic,” said Dr. Neil Fleshner, head of urology at the University Health Network in Ontario and co-author of the study.

Studies that have been previously conducted would suggest that certain chemicals such as pesticides and medications that have been contaminating the water supply can be blamed for an increase in endocrine-related diseases, which can include different types of cancer. Fleshner agrees that the research has supplied them with more questions than answers and admits their hypothesis is based on educated guesses.

Right now men living in Europe and North America have a higher risk of developing prostate cancer and that risk increases in those countries where the use of birth control pills like Yaz is significant.

“This is just a hypothesis-generating idea," Fleshner adds. "Women should not be throwing away the pill because of this.”