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To: jlogajan
A study design that is less prone to bias is a prospective study, in which a population of women who are cancer-free are asked about their past abortions and then followed for the occurrence of new cancer. In this type of study, there is no opportunity for the disease process itself to influence one’s memory of past abortions or willingness to report past abortions.

Re-read your Study. They are refuting the Studies that include current Cancer because of re-call-bias. Still, like I said. Using this type of study, with the controls being no current cases of Cancer, can be effective. IF and Only IF you follow the pathology of the disease (among other things). This study cannot be used until the entire case group has completed the Cycle. Because current Cancer can be caused by many different things and as far back as 40 + years this study cannot be complete until most or all the women involved die. They chose a long term, un-completed study to prove a point they do not have.

150 posted on 04/26/2002 10:37:23 AM PDT by CyberCowboy777
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To: CyberCowboy777
Abortion has been legal in Denmark since 1939. Therefore any study would merely have to track in all age groups those who didn't have breast cancer at the baseline. Then follow all age groups for a few years. This would eliminate recall-bias and at the same time give data on all age groups, since abortion had been around for quite long enough (60 years.)

However since it is socialized medicine in Denmark, they keep records on every patient. They know who has had an abortion and who has had breast cancer. It is all in the records there. They don't have to interview the patient and therefore there will be no "recall bias."

This "cohort" study was of 1.5 million women. It was a significant study. Since the records were already kept by the time of the study, there was no way the doctors could have known in advance for 60 years to "lie" into records so as to bias this future study.

In fact, no cohort study has ever found a link between abortion and breast cancer. Only the methodology flawed "case-control" studies have found such a link, and it has been shown that this is solely due to recall-bias -- where healthy women underreport their abortion histories as compared to women who know they have breast cancer.

151 posted on 04/26/2002 8:09:51 PM PDT by jlogajan
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To: CyberCowboy777
In short, you can produce 10,000 flawed "case-control" studies, and they won't amount to a hill of beans beside one good cohort study -- recall bias is a really truth killer.
152 posted on 04/26/2002 8:12:15 PM PDT by jlogajan
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