According to a new report presented at the Third European Breast Cancer Conference last week, birth control pills increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. Dr. Merethe Kumle, an epidemiologist from the Institute of Community Medicine in Tromso, Norway, and several French and Swedish researchers followed 103,027 women between the ages of 30 and 49 from 1991 to December 1999.

The report revealed that the risk of developing breast cancer rose by twenty-six percent among women who had taken oral contraceptives. Women over the age of 45 and still using "the pill" faced nearly twice the risk of developing the disorder. Kumle told medical experts at the conference that despite the study's findings, oral contraceptives are still effective and "should still be the drug of choice for young women."