Gale Sipple is also co-founder of TBA and Kentucky Coordinator of the Green Ribbon Campaign, an activist organization that helps open adoptees' birth records, and says, "This �sealing� of birth records began in the post World War II era. However, the laws are slowly changing, state by state, that allow adoptees  to request and receive their own birth records. While this doesn�t guarantee adoptees that they can find their birth parents, it also doesn�t guarantee birth parents who want to remain anonymous that they will be unable to do so.  It is important to note that TBA�s dna program is strictly a voluntary participation program."

Sipple further states, "As the adopted daughter of a woman who died of breast cancer, as well as the adopted niece of a wonderful aunt lost to the same disease, and having cared for my mother for over 7 years until her death, I think I have a very good knowledge about the subject of this hereditary disease. "

Continuing, Sipple says, "My mother was both a survivor and a victim. After her initial diagnosis, she underwent a radical mastectomy. Then came the chemo.  My mother volunteered for the initial study for Tamoxifen.  She was on this drug continually for 6 1/2 years, cancer free.   Her doctor told her that the treatment protocol for the drug called for it to be discontinued after 6 years, as it seemed to be less effective. She was taken off the Tamoxifen. That was in February. "

"In May, my adoptive mother asked me to accompany her to the Doctor, because she was having an extreme amount of pain in her hip. It was a tumor, the breast cancer had returned, this time in/on her bones. My mother decided a year later to discontinue treatment after the cancer won against the chemo. She died 4 months later."

"The AMA did change the protocol of the drug, thanks to this study, and now, it is prescribed as a preventative to many women who have a genetic risk -  female members of their immediate family who suffer from the disease.  If this would have been my BIRTH mother, I would have been at high risk, and eligible for preventative treatment, but, I would never have known that I was high risk, due to closed adoption records and lack of information about family medical history," Sipple concludes.

"There are many Black Market adoptions that have occurred over the years.  Couples who can�t have children because of infertility or because of their own health problems, will also turn to the black market.  This occurs, not only in the US, but world wide as well. Selling of illegal babies is a multi billion dollar industry, making it very hard to locate birth parents when the adoptee becomes an adult," states Ms. Hammer.

Susan Stockham is a member of the Board of Directors of TBA, and is an adoption attorney in Sarasota and states, "TBA is the only way to open the door to medical records and reunions for those who placed or were placed under an alias name or through a maternity home or unlicensed entity as was common from 1920-1970; in relative placements; and in black-market adoptions.  TBA will also assist those whose adoptions were involuntary such as where they were separated by governmental or military actions as with the Indians in the mid-west and Canada, the aborigine in Australia; the Korean and Vietnam baby air lifts and civil war in Argentina; or by national disasters such as famine in Africa."