Posted on 09/25/2005 9:13:53 PM PDT by Lesforlife
Rocky Mountain News
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URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_4102473,00.html Speakout: Breast cancer-abortion link slighted
By Leslie Hanks, Special to the News September 23, 2005
As the leaves begin to turn gold each fall, cities begin to turn pink.
Everywhere one looks one finds pink ads, pink attire, pink hats, pink tennis shoes, pink teas - yes The Republic of Tea makes a Sip for the Cure. The Race for the Cure (for breast cancer) has become thecause celebre for the nation.
A perusal of a recent O, The Oprah Magazine found 14 pages of ads for the politically correct event. The Susan G. Komen Foundation is proclaimed on radio commercials, seen in huge displays in shopping malls and their pink ribbons decorate buildings all over town. Has there ever before been a more comprehensive marketing campaign? On Oct. 2, Denver's Clear Channel radio stations, 9News and Safeway will sponsor this year's Race for the Cure to raise funds for a cure for breast cancer.
The participating women are highly motivated to find a cure for the dread disease, and who can blame them? In the recent past, however, a growing body of evidence has been amassed linking breast cancer and the most avoidable risk factor for it: abortion. One can study the statistics and come to one's own conclusions, but the data found on www.abortionbreastcancer.com is pretty persuasive.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation lost a founding member of its National Hispanic Latina Advisory Council, Eve Sanchez Silver, because of her concern about the foundation giving funds to Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the nation. Sanchez Silver asking, "Why aren't women being told?" Her concerns can be found at www.pinkmoney.org.
As early as 1986, government scientists wrote a letter to the British medical journal The Lancetacknowledging that abortion is a cause of breast cancer. They wrote, "Induced abortion before first term pregnancy increases the risk of breast cancer" (The Lancet, Feb. 22, 1986).
Aborting one's first pregnancy - when the breast's cells are changing from nonmilk-producing to those able to sustain life - apparently leaves the cells in a vulnerable state to toxins, leading to a serious increase in one's risk for developing breast cancer later in life.
As the abortion-breast cancer link's strongest proponent, Joel Brind, Ph.D., explains, "So full-term pregnancy is protective; it lowers breast cancer risk. But if that pregnancy is cut off artificially somewhere in the middle after some weeks or months, [a woman] has far more cells in her breasts that are capable of proliferation, and that have proliferated, than she did at the beginning of the pregnancy, which translates statistically into a higher chance of getting breast cancer later in life."
Why does giving grants to Planned Parenthood, the organization that may be most responsible for the dire increase in breast cancer rates since Roe v. Wade, make any sense? Why do the mainstream media insist on a media blackout about the most relevant topic to women's health today? Why do editors routinely ignore the queries begging them to reveal the truth? Do they believe women can't handle the truth?
Leslie Hanks is the vice president of Colorado Right to Life. She is a resident of Watkins.
Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
BTTT. A must read
AAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHH!
GAWD where do they find these air heads and how did they pass jorunalism 101.
Never mind... That's probably what J101 consists of these days.
RUT-ROW!!!
Breastfeeding is so beneficial.
later pingout.
They don't care about women, and whether or not women can handle the truth is irrelevant. Abortion is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, and its continued success is all that matters.
I'm not sure this is being slighted - Brind's work has caused others to take a look at the issue.
One problem is that Brind combined the data from 33 published reports without considering the quality of the various studies.
http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/50/5/481
Another problem is that even his data suggests the risk drops to zero if the abortion is after the first trimester and that his highest estimate of risk is small compared to the risk of pregnancy.
The final problem is that the studies designed specifically to look at this don't show the link.
http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/59/4/283
So I'm not saying that they are wrong about the link - there may be a link but there is no need to resort to conspiracy theories to explain the reaction thus far.
.
I'm wondering how the cancer risk is small compared to pregnancy (assuming that Brind and others are correct). If the normal lifetime risk of breast cancer is one in ten, and abortion increased it by only a quarter, that's an awful lot of cancer cases - granted most will happen late in life.
There was one study some ten years back designed spefically to look at the link, by a woman researcher in Washington state, I believe. She is pro-abortion and not inclined to believe in the link going in but did afterward. One striking result from her study - there were six women with a family history of the disease who had an abortion before 18, and all six had cancer by the time they were forty.
Mrs VS
"I'm wondering how the cancer risk is small compared to pregnancy (assuming that Brind and others are correct). If the normal lifetime risk of breast cancer is one in ten, and abortion increased it by only a quarter, that's an awful lot of cancer cases - granted most will happen late in life."
It's not that the chance of cancer is small but rather that the changes in the cancer rate they are trying to measure are small.
Brind found that the odds ratio for women with no abortion history was 1.4 compared to 1.5 with first term abortion history.
Thats the difference between 59 of a hundred women having breast cancer versus 60 of 100 having breast cancer. That's a small change you are trying to measure and when you are getting your numbers by by adding up dozens of studies with different qualities it becomes scientifically difficult to say you have proved anything.
Brind is also up against a recent Scottish study that involved 20,000 women and found a lower or unchanged chance of breast cancer among women with a previous abortion - he is trying to make the case that trimesters is the determining factor.
What he really needs is a dedicated study because there might be other differences between women with first trimester abortions versus - they might be older, for example, or wealthier or better educated.
But a dedicated study is a big deal and would normally be run by a medical doctor instead of so I can't find any sign that such a study is on the way but Brind does have good credentials for analysis - BS from Yale and a PhD in biology from NY University and his work is peer reviewed so I'm not saying he is wrong.
BTW, here is an interesting article where he defends his position
http://www.christianity.com/CC/article/0,,PTID4211%7CCHID102759%7CCIID266102,00.html
And here is his web site but there is not much information there and it looks like he may be selling the domain.
http://www.abortioncancer.com/
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