New Hampshire lawmaker suggests the pill causes cancer in men

A New Hampshire lawmaker thinks she has found one more reason for health insurance not to cover contraception for women.

During a Thursday hearing on a resolution calling for President Barack Obama to exempt religious institutions from covering birth control, state Rep. Jeanine Notter (R-Merrimack) made the surprising claim that female contraceptives cause prostate cancer in men.

Notter's remarks were captured on video by Granite State Progress and first reported by Merrimack Patch.

"As a man, would it interest you to know that Dr. Brownstein just published an article that links the pill to prostate cancer?" Notter asked state Rep. Andrew Manuse (R-Derry).

"In the children that are born from these women?" a confused Manuse replied.

"Women take the pill and it's in their bodies -- I'm very anti-chemical -- and the men pick it up," she explained.

Dr. David Brownstein, who Notter cited, had not actually conducted the study, but used it to make a point against contraception in the conservative publication Newsmax.

The study published last year in the British Medical Journal Open found higher prostate cancer rates in countries where women were more likely to use birth control pills, but did not conclude the pill was the cause.

"This is just a hypothesis generating idea," study co-author and head of urology at the University Health Network in Ontario, Dr. Neil Fleshner, wrote. “Women should not be throwing away the pill because of this.”

Watch this video from Granite State Progress, broadcast Feb. 17, 2012.