Posted on 05/20/2005 1:22:42 PM PDT by worldclass
In reviewing every single study of the link between abortion and breast cancer conducted since 1957, Brind found the evidence is conclusive. But he also found the results of those studies have often been twisted, manipulated and distorted to downplay the connection.
Brind's study indicts not only the researchers, but government agencies and the news media for covering up the facts.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
I'd like to see the data correlating the two.
FYI, neverdem.
Please delete#3... I don't know what the heck I was thinking.....
Please don't hold your breath.
Joel Brind, a professor of human biology and endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Center
It's notable that this Brind fellow is the leading proponent of this notion. That he is utterly lacking in qualifications to do such research doesn't bother his zealous followers a bit. Anybody who tells them what they want to hear is qualified in their book.
For the record, Baruch College is the BUSINESS college of the City University of New York http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/
Baruch doesn't even offer an undergraduate major, much less any graduate level programs, in anything remotely related to biology or medicine. The college offers an undergraduate MINOR only, in "Natural Sciences", and it is this department -- that doesn't even offer an undergraduate level major -- in which Dr. Brind is a Professor.
The "Breast Cancer Prevention Center", needless to say, is something he created to give himself something to call himself "President" of.
I see it every time a thread like this appears.
It didn't take long.
But from my wanderings over the internet, I see that Dr.Brind seems far from the charlatan you would have us believe.
He is Professor of Biology, Chemistry and Endocrinology at Baruch College of City University, of New York.
And he and colleagues from Penn State College of Medicine have been published in the British Medical Association's Journal.
Or do you not like the message he's sending???
I'd be interested in how he thinks the Baptist Baylor University "twisted" their findings that there is no connection between breast cancer and abortion, and what their motivation would have been for doing so.
Works with Nittany Lions? OK with me.
Seriously, a statistical study doesn't require a PhD in biology or any other field being studied. It requires someone who is great in stats. By the way, business schools usually are pretty good in stats.
Abortion and breast cancer. was done by Joel Brind and another author. I'm afraid the topic is too politicized. The Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine are politically correct these days. I don't know if the Institute of Medicine could review the issue.
Check "Related Links" at PubMed.
WND is clever, though... they use statements like...
In reviewing every single study of the link between abortion and breast cancer conducted since 1957, Brind found the evidence is conclusive.
...which implies that the papers all concluded that. In fact, they didn't. Brind reviewed all the papers, and they didn't all find that, but Brind found it conclusive. So WND makes a factually correct statement, but misleads the reader.
I'd like to hear him explain how his meta-analysis accounts for the known UNDERreporting of abortions by healthy women, compared with those who have been diagnosed with cancer. That known bias would skew the data in the same direction he's looking. Does anyone have a link to his recent analysis...or is he recycling is 1996 analysis? Or know if he corrected for age--age of first pregnancy, etc.?
Frankly, I can easily believe there could be something to this (dare I even say I do believe the link exists?!)...but I get so sickened by the faking and misleading that goes on. Used to be that conservatives were the honest ones since we know truth is on our side... where did that confidence go?! Where did "ends justify means" enter into it?
>sigh<
Farah does himself and WND a disservice with this article. As much as I detest abortion, I don't like articles which state so-called facts without supporting data. I had to post hastily, but that was the whole point of my previous post. Erroneous conclusions are easily reached that way.
perzactly
The Related Links seem to substantially refute Brind, et al.
But he doesn't teach statistics at Baruch, nor is there any indication that he is qualified to.
Does he give breast exams as well?
First, I didn't make any observations about Brind's "business bent". He doesn't teach business, nor does he have any qualifications to do so. More relevantly, his peers in the field of biology haven't found him qualified to teach biology beyond a very introductory level course offered to non-science majors at a business school (probably barely equivalent to a high school AP biology course) -- if they had, certainly he'd have been able to get a job teaching at an institution which at least offers an undergraduate biology major.
No qualified researcher who has examined this claim has been able to find any evidence that it exists to any degree whatsoever. It's pretty hard to go hunting for possible causes of a phenomenon, when you have no evidence that it exists at all. There are any number of possible explanations for CORRELATIONS (not CAUSATION) between abortion and breast cancer, though they'd have to be pretty small since no one has been able to establish even a statistically significant correlation between abortion and breast cancer.
As for possible correlative factors, start with the fact that girls/women who get pregnant when they didn't want to be, statistically fall into a subset of the population which is disproportionately impulsive and/or doesn't take precautions to avoid unwanted future events. It's worth asking what else this subset of the population does that might have a causative or correlative relationship with breast cancer.
1) Lack of self-control in eating. It is very well established that excess weight (not just obesity, but even a little) is a major risk factor for breast cancer.
2) Early puberty is also known to be a risk factor for breast cancer, and increases the number of years that emotional/social immaturity and interest in sexual activity and ability to become pregnant coincide.
3) Delayed or no childbearing increases breast cancer risk (for the same reason early menarche or late menopause do -- more lifetime menstrual cycles, with accompanying increase in lifetime estrogen exposure), and women who abort their first pregnancies (the only group which Brind claims has a significantly higher breast cancer risk) are by definition inclined to delay childbearing at least to some degree.
4) Alcohol use raises breast cancer risk somewhat. One drink a day raises it a little; 2-5 drinks daily raises it by as much as 50% according to some studies. Do you suppose there could be any connection between boozing young ladies, and young ladies who forget or don't bother to "take precautions" when they hop into bed at booze-soaked partied? And wouldn't such young ladies be likely to abort their unwanted pregnancies, so they could carry on with their partying?
Yet despite all these very plausible correlative factors, no serious researcher has been able to establish even a statistically significant correlation between abortion and breast cancer. The claim that abortion CAUSES breast cancer is utterly preposterous. There is no more evidence to support that, than there is to support a claim that it prevents breast cancer.
As for possible medical/hormonal explanations for this non-existent phenomenon, Brind (and no one else, besides his even less qualified sycophants) claims that it is due to the breast tissue beginning to prepare for lactation for the first time, and then being stopped before the process is finished. He claims (when pressed) that this phenomenon also shows up in natural miscarriages (but no one else has found a correlation there either). Given that any significant pre-lactation changes in breast tissue happen quite in late in pregnancy, and most abortions are quite early in pregnancy, this notion simply doesn't hold water.
The fact that this guy has been able to get a foothold in the anti-abortion movement speaks volumes about the demographics of that movement. People who are opposed to abortion (and I am not one) would do their cause a big favor by shutting him up and distancing their movement from him.
I think I now see the real source of your passion.
In short, Baruch College is simply part of one of the largest and oldest universities in America. Certainly there are programs aplenty within CUNY that touch on the subject ~ one of them I'm thinking of is STATISTICS, a science frequently ignored by ideologues.
Actually, I have a passion for facts. And I'm also deeply suspicious of people who don't let facts get in the way of their passions (and I'm not suggesting you're one of those). I place Dr. Brind in the same category as the dim-witted leftist ideologues who passionately insist that spending schools' time and money on teaching kids how to put condoms on cucumbers, will reduce teen pregnancy and STDs.
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