New Study Shows Abortion is 'Best Predictor of Breast Cancer'

LifeSiteNews ^ | 10/3/07 | LifeSiteNews

[wagglebee]

WASHINGTON, DC, October 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published a study yesterday entitled, "The Breast Cancer Epidemic." It showed that, among seven risk factors, abortion is the "best predictor of breast cancer," and fertility is also a useful predictor. 

The study by Patrick Carroll of PAPRI in London showed that countries with higher abortion rates, such as England & Wales, could expect a substantial increase in breast cancer incidence. Where abortion rates are low (i.e., Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic) a smaller increase is expected. Where a decline in abortion has taken place, (i.e., Denmark and Finland) a decline in breast cancer is anticipated.

Carroll used the same mathematical model for a previous forecast of numbers of breast cancers in future years for England & Wales based on cancer data up to 1997 that has proved quite accurate for predicting cancers observed in years 1998 to 2004.

In four countries - England & Wales, Scotland, Finland and Denmark - a social gradient has been discovered (unlike that for other cancers) whereby upper class and upwardly mobile women have more breast cancer than lower class women. This was studied in Finland and Denmark and the influence of known risk factors other than abortion was examined, but the gradient was not explained.

Carroll suggests that the known preference for abortion in this class might explain the phenomenon. Women pursuing higher educations and professional careers often delay marriage and childbearing. Abortions before the birth of a first child are highly carcinogenic.

Carroll used national data from nations believed to have "nearly complete abortion counts." Therefore, his study is not affected by recall bias.

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer commented on the latest findings stating: "It's time for scientists to admit publicly what they already acknowledge privately among themselves - that abortion raises breast cancer risk - and to stop conducting flawed research to protect the medical establishment from massive medical practice lawsuits."

See the new study online here:
http://www.jpands.org/vol12no3/carroll.pdf

[Amelia]

I believe that abortion is morally wrong.

However, the very first lesson one learns in any research class is that "correlation is not causation."

[Amelia]

LifeSiteNews has an agenda, one that I don’t necessarily disagree with on all points but they loose all credibility with me when they cherry pick some parts of medical studies to support their claims and ignore other parts of the same studies that disprove their point of view. To me, LifeSiteNews is to women’s health studies as Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” is to serious environmental studies. The skewing of real scientific research data and reactionary and hysterical headlines does the Pro-Life cause more harm that good.

Precisely! Well said!

[bjs1779]

LifeSiteNews has an agenda, one that I don’t necessarily disagree with on all points but they loose all credibility with me when they cherry pick some parts of medical studies to support their claims and ignore other parts of the same studies that disprove their point of view.

In other words, abortion is something you agree with?

[bjs1779]

Precisely! Well said!

My impression is that if I were an abortionist, you would love me.

[Amelia]

You know what they say about assuming....

[bjs1779]

You know what they say about assuming....

That's fine, we are all waiting ro see if you have a mind of your own. Post # 82 makes you look giddy.

[Caramelgal]

Please read what I said in post #26: "I think there are a lot of good reasons to oppose abortion as I do, but junk science and faulty studies are not at the top of my list of reasons.

[Amelia]

Post # 82 makes you look giddy.

Only if you are too ignorant to understand, or too blinded by ideology to attempt to discern, that #59 is correct.

[victim soul]

No one is excited about breast cancer - just very angry about the fact that one means of prevention has been excluded from parlor talk, MSM etc..

If you look at all the steroids, chemicals and other “refinements of the same “ women and teens have been pumping into their bodies since the sixties to prevent pregnancies and seeing their long term results makes us very angry.

And learning that back up birth control - abortion - is another atrocity foisted on women with its own bad consequences - death to their children and post abortive outcomes makes some of us, women, very angry and heartsick.

[bjs1779]

Please read what I said in post #26: "I think there are a lot of good reasons to oppose abortion as I do, but junk science and faulty studies are not at the top of my list of reasons.

That sounds like a good reason. Better dead than prove junk science wrong.

[bjs1779]

Only if you are too ignorant to understand, or too blinded by ideology to attempt to discern, that #59 is correct.

Right. I somehow think you are pro-abortion. Not that you are ignorant or blinded by ideolgy or anything.

[Caramelgal]

I’d like to take the high road and put a civil end to our disagreement because I think we all agree on the most important point: that abortion is the end of life of an innocent unborn human.

I believe and take Amelia at her word when she says “I believe that abortion is morally wrong.” and I wish you would take her at her word as I do.

And as I believe that abortion is wrong morally, I also believe it violates the principals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I wish you would also accept that I’m stating what I believe.

My point and I think the point of a few others here is that this study was faulty, incomplete, illogical and inconclusive and therefore irrelevant to the bigger issue and hysterical headlines based on faulty hypothesizes and easily disputed and disproved studies like this, harms the pro-life cause rather than helps it.

I bet that if someone wanted to give me a research grant I could make a statistical correlation that the number of young women with tattoos in certain countries equates with the number of STD’s of women in those same countries. I could therefore make a correlation and conclusion that tattoos causes women to get STD’s. But that would be wrong as tattoos don’t “cause” STD’s. Women with tattoos may be more likely to engage in other behaviors and life style choices that put them at a greater risk but that doesn’t mean that if I go out today and get at tattoo, I will get an STD or correspondingly if I never get at tattoo, I will be immune. If I used such faulty statistics and logic to make the claim that tattoos cause STD’s to make the case that tattoo parlors should be shut down on this basis alone, I’d be rightfully the subject of ridicule and would do nothing to help young women understand that indiscriminate sex with multiple partners puts them at a high risk for STD’s and will harm their emotional and moral development.

Statistics can be interesting and statistical studies have their place but narrowly focused statistics can be purposely or even innocently skewed to make correlations and conclusions where none really exist – as they say, “the devil is in the details”.

Unless this study looked at the number of women who actually had abortions and tracked their rates of breast cancer over time vs. the general population vs. the number of women who developed breast cancer but never had any abortions, then this study is meaningless.

Better dead than prove junk science wrong.

Given that logic then we should presume that Al Gore and the global warming alarmists are right because they have “statistics” and junk science to back up their claims and we should sign on the Kyoto Agreement immediately - after all signing on to Kyoto “is for the children”. Hillary also has statistics to support the cause of Universal Health Care, which is also “for the children”. Better alive than prove junk science wrong….

[bjs1779]

That’s a nice reply. However, babies are being killed. You argue about a study. I am sorry, but I don’t buy it.

[Amelia]

So you agree that Al Gore has the facts on his side, and should be believed?

[Caramelgal]

That’s a nice reply. However, babies are being killed. You argue about a study. I am sorry, but I don’t buy it.

You are also arguing with me and others about a “study” but this “study” unfortunately will not save one single baby from being ripped from their mother’s womb and killed despite what I think may be the author’s well meaning intentions. I submit to you that this sort of irrational argument and hysterics makes the bigger cause (the relevance and importance of each and every human life) diminished and more easily dismissed by those who seek out weaknesses in our argument against abortion.

When you say “I don’t buy it” just what aren’t you buying? – the validity of this “study” or the veracity of what I and others have said; “I believe that abortion is wrong but I believe that this study is seriously flawed and that hysterical headlines based on bad reasoning and rash conclusions based on incomplete data analysis does the anti-abortion cause more harm than good”?

Just because I and some others believe this study’s conclusions are flawed if not out right wrong doesn’t mean I or others who question it’s conclusions are pro-abortion.

I also would like you to consider the other possible implications of this “study” and the headline: Abortion is 'Best Predictor of Breast Cancer'.

What if even a few women read this headline and the false conclusions of this study and concluded that since they had never had an abortion that they were at a much lower risk of breast cancer despite other risk factors and studies to the contrary and decide that they didn’t need to get a mammogram?

How would you be able to explain to a widowed husband and motherless children that this faulty study might have saved a baby on false conclusions but it cost a loving wife and mother her life?

I crunch numbers and audit data between disparate databases all day for a living so I know a little about how mere numbers can result in some very misleading conclusions.

When I’m analyzing the results of a data audit, I have to dig deeper to first determine if the datasets I’m comparing are really valid or in other words; am I really comparing “apples to apples” or just my basket of “selected apples” compared to a basket full of “many types of apples” that also contains “various other fresh fruits and vegetables” and “some lawn furniture”? And once I determine that I am making a comparison of similar datasets, I have to determine what those results are really saying. I can never just take the raw data at face value. If I do, I can really mess things up for my clients and their clients and lose my job as a result.

That may sound irrelevant but the data I analyze and quantify everyday has to do not with fruits and vegetables but with health insurance access. If I make mistake in my analysis, I can inadvertently cancel a person or their dependent’s health insurance.

If I make a mistake that could mean that a young mother with a sick infant is told at the emergency room that they don’t have insurance coverage and that could delay life saving treatment.

[STARWISE]

Unless the breast cancer in these countries afflicts women who’ve had abortions disproportionately - a point which the report seems to evade making - the most we have here is evidence of some cultural factor leading to both abortions and breast cancer.

It's not cultural .... it's hormonal.... and hormones are powerful, especially the estrogens and progesterone.

Our bodies were knit together in a glorious order. When that order is disrupted, there are sometimes unintended and unexpected consequences.

~~~~~~~~

The Biological Explanation For The Link

"The explanation for the independent link makes good biological sense. It remains unrefuted and unchallenged by scientists because it is physiologically correct.

A never-pregnant woman has a network of primitive, immature and cancer-vulnerable breast cells which make up her milk glands. It is only in the third trimester of pregnancy - after 32 weeks gestation - that her cells start to mature and are fashioned into milk producing tissue whose cells are cancer resistant.

When a woman becomes pregnant, her breasts enlarge. This occurs because a hormone called estradiol, a type of estrogen, causes both the normal and pre-cancerous cells in the breast to multiply terrifically. This process is called “proliferation.” By 7 to 8 weeks gestation, the estradiol level has increased by 500% over what it was at the time of conception.

If the pregnancy is carried to term, a second process called “differentiation” takes place. Differentiation is the shaping of cells into milk producing tissue. It shuts off the cell multiplication process. This takes place at approximately 32 weeks gestation.

If the pregnancy is aborted, the woman is left with more undifferentiated -- and therefore cancer-vulnerable cells -- than she had before she was pregnant. On the other hand, a full term pregnancy leaves a woman with more milk producing differentiated cells, which means that she has fewer cancer-vulnerable cells in her breasts than she did before the pregnancy.

In contrast, research has shown that most miscarriages do not raise breast cancer risk. This is due to a lack of estrogen overexposure. Miscarriages are frequently precipitated by a decline in the production of progesterone which is needed to maintain a pregnancy. Estrogen is made from progesterone, so the levels of each hormone rise and fall together during pregnancy.

For a thorough biological explanation of the abortion-breast cancer link, see this second website for the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, www.BCPInstitute.org and click on its online booklet, “Breast Cancer Risks and Prevention.”

[STARWISE]

undifferentiated cells, even if cancer vulnerable, don’t necessarily result in cancer.

~~~~~

But they can .. and

I would hope no one is saying abortion IS THE ONLY REASON FOR BREAST CANCER. That would certainly be disingenuous and false, but there are enough powerful hormonal processes artificially interrupted, as I understand it, that it can be a catalyst to problematic cell changes.

Also, I think it’s pretty well accepted that, the more periods a woman has in her lifetime the greater her risk of cancer CAN be.

~~~~~

Pregnancies Lower Breast Cancer Risk In BRCA1 And BRCA2 Mutation Carriers

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/44228.php

~~~~~

http://bcpinstitute.org/reproductive.htm

A woman who has a full-term pregnancy decreases her breast cancer risk.

A woman who is childless has increased breast cancer risk.

The timing of pregnancy in the course of a woman’s reproductive life is crucial to breast cancer risk.

The longer a woman waits before having her first child, the higher her risk because she has a longer “susceptibility window.” For example, a woman who gives birth at 18 has a 50-75% lower risk of breast cancer than a woman who waits until she is 30

[Grut]

Our bodies were knit together in a glorious order. When that order is disrupted....

But the report provides NO evidence that the women who had abortions are the women who developed breast cancer. There's just nothing to work with, there.

[ga medic]

If you would have read my previous post before responding to it, you would know that the information you posted is untrue. Most miscarriages are not caused by a decrease in progesterone. In fact, it is a small percentage, because it is monitored during pregnancy, and can easily be replaced by oral medication.

Most miscarriages are caused by embryonic insufficiency, and would therefore not be substantially different from an induced abortion. The truth is that there have been no scientific studies that even begin to answer the question of whether induced abortion increases breast cancer risk or not. There might be a statistical correlation, but without screening for other causes, I doubt that a statistical correlation can be established.

There is little that is more important than protecting innocent life. There is no reason to perpetuate misleading or deceptive “links” to cancer, and I believe it hurts more than helps the cause. And yes, your links are deceptive and misleading.

[STARWISE]

First of all, I am not purposely posting misleading
or deceptive information, and as a long time FReeper,
I do not take kindly to a fellow FReeper inferring that
to be the case.

It’s as much as saying I’m a liar.

Second, I’m posting information that’s been available for consideration and that I’ve been researching for years.

Third, I happen to believe this connection makes biological sense. Others are entitled to their different viewpoint.

Fourth, I am devoutly pro-life, anti-abortion.

Fifth, not everything in the complex and miraculous biological processes in our bodies is or ever will be completely predictable, even by those who consider themselves very knowledgeable. Any honest scientist or practitioner will admit that the “mysterious” has caused them to wonder or shake their heads at unexpected or unintended consequences.

Lastly, if we disagree, so be it, but be very cautious about personalizing our disagreement with incorrect and/or ignorant assertions about my viewpoint.