Does Trump’s top HHS appointee believe in the discredited link between abortion & breast cancer? We received reader requests to answer this question, so we took a look. After President Trump tapped Charmaine Yoest as assistant secretary of health and human services, critics resurfaced a 2012 New York Times feature story. The Times article described Yoest's position supporting the discredited theory that abortion increases a woman's risk for breast cancer. Yoest is a prominent opponent of abortion rights. We repeatedly asked her whether she still believes this, but she did not give us a yes-or-no answer. There’s been a lot of research into this. The scientific community, led by the National Cancer Institute, have concluded that there is no increased breast cancer risk associated with abortion. There are many risk factors for breast cancer, including: family history, the woman's age (older women face increased risks), how old she was at her first menstrual period (people who get their first periods later face a higher risk), how old she was when she delivered her first full-term pregnancy (women who have children later or who never have children face a higher risk), and obesity after menopause. But abortion has not been scientifically proven to be a factor. This theory has been around for decades. It was widely promoted in the wake of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Groups that still perpetuate this theory claim that the development of breast tissues at certain periods of the pregnancy cycle leads to an increased chance of breast cancer. They say that if a woman ends her pregnancy in the second trimester, from about 20 to 32 weeks, she faces a greater risk. But that goes for women who had abortions, miscarriages or premature deliveries. The National Cancer Institute did not support this theory. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we’ll check it out.  Welcome, summer! (giphy.com) Get caught up on the facts for your Memorial Day weekend activities. A lot has been happening lately in national politics, especially over President Trump’s decision to fire James B. Comey as FBI director, his firing of his national security adviser Michael Flynn, and his disclosure of classified information to Russians. If you’re like us, you probably hang around people obsessed with politics and want to be the one who talks about it accurately. | 
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