Posted on 06/03/2002 5:20:19 AM PDT by A. Pole
*************************
The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition
51 Diauto Drive
Randolph, MA 02368
781/961-7460
April 3, 2002
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
P.O. Box 152
Palos Heights, IL 60463
Dear Ms. Malec:
Thank you for forwarding us information about your group and your position on abortion as a risk factor for future development of breast cancer.
However, the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, as well as other breast cancer and women's organizations throughout the country, does not agree with your hypothesis. The association between induced abortion and breast cancer is an emotionally charged and sensitive issue. This is an issue where truth-telling, and not the manipulation of data, is crucial. Unfortunately, we find your presentation of the research on abortion and breast cancer a distortion of the data.
As you will note from the enclosed information (see National Breast Cancer Coalition Position Jan. 2002), the results of two case control studies, two large cohort studies and two meta-analyses all suggest that there is no association between abortion and the risk of breast cancer.
In addition the World Health Organization, American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute all agree that the results of a large study published in The New England Journal of Medicine [Melbye, Wohlfahrt, and Olsen; "Induced Abortion and the Risk of Breast Cancer;" 336(2):8-15] in 1997 conclude that "Induced Abortion has no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer."
Enclosed also please find a copy of an article by Davidson, "Abortion and breast cancer: a hard decision made harder" (December 2001) which appeared in "The Lancet Oncology" one of the most respected international medical journals. Davidson reviews the research both supporting and refuting the hypothesis regarding a link between abortion and breast cancer and concludes "that there are to date insufficient data to justify warning women of future breast cancer risk when counseling them about abortion."
Based on all of the reviews and present state of the research, we do not agree with your assumption regarding this link. An editorial comment by Harte summed up the issue well by saying "...a woman need not worry about the risk of breast cancer when facing the difficult decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy." [NEJM 336 (2): 127-128, 1997]
As a final note, we are particularly concerned that you are presenting the data in a biased and distorted manner. We cannot but help question the motives of a group that would manipulate the public by using the fear of breast cancer as a weapon in an anti-abortion crusade.
Sincerely,
Bev Baccelli
President
Board of Directors
********************************************************************
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
An International Women's Organization
P.O. Box 152
Palos Heights, IL 60463
630-226-9336
President Bev Baccelli
The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition:
51 Diauto Drive, Suite B
Randolph, MA 02368
Dear Ms. Baccelli:
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a patient advocacy group, told World Net Daily on March 27, 2002 that doctors should be informing abortion-bound women that more studies reveal a link between abortion and breast cancer than don't.
Jane Orient, M.D. said, "If you look at the number of studies that show a connection, they vastly outnumber the ones that don't, and the ones that don't have been criticized for serious methodological flaws." That would include the 1997 Melbye et al. study which you cited. [New England Journal of Medicine 336:81-5]
She added that the elevated risk is "substantial, particularly in women who abort their first pregnancy at a young age and who have a family history of breast cancer. It's something like 800 percent."
The American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has joined her group in calling for informed consent for women.
We note that the only comprehensive review and meta-analysis of the worldwide research was omitted in the literature you sent us. [Brind et al. (1996) J Epidemiol Community Health 50:481-96]
Are you aware that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reviewed this paper, found it methodologically sound and said that the research, which reported a 30% risk elevation, "could not be disregarded"? [Evidence-based guideline #7 (2000) RCOG Press, pp. 29-30]
You've relied on the article published by Lancet Oncology in December 2001 and authored by Tim Davidson. Davidson used the tobacco industry's defense and claimed in his article that there is no "consistent and conclusive" proof of a link. [Vol. 2, p. 756-58]
The purpose of Davidson's article was to debunk Patrick Carroll's statistical study reporting that British women who procure abortions double their risk of breast cancer. ["Abortion and Other Pregnancy Related Risk Factors in Female Breast Cancer," Pension and Population Research Institute, London, 2001]
The conclusions in the Davidson article say, "For future epidemiological studies in breast cancer, more work is needed in specific areas where a stronger association might exist, such as in late second-trimester abortions, in very young patients, and in families with a genetic predisposition...."
Does it cause you any discomfort that women in these groups recommended for study by Davidson have not been informed that these are areas of concern for scientists? After all, we're talking about women risking their lives for an optional surgical procedure.
We're talking about women who've had abortions, but don't know that they need to seek early detection or take steps to reduce their risks.
You also cite the National Cancer Institute. This is the same agency which lied to women on its web page in 1998. You could easily verify this if you wanted. The agency said that only animal studies had provided a scientific rationale for the abortion-breast cancer link. Yet the NCI had helped fund most of the 12 American studies conducted by then, and 11 reported risk elevations. Altogether, 26 out of 32 worldwide studies had reported a link.
Where is the outcry from the anti-cancer organizations about this scientific misconduct?
Does it disturb you that the March 6, 2002 web page posted by the NCI on this subject includes more easily verifiable lies? For instance, the agency relies on the Tang et al. 2000 study to justify its assertion that "recall bias" is a flaw in retrospective studies. If you read Tang et al.'s abstract, it reached quite the opposite conclusion. It says, "The authors' data do not suggest that controls are more reluctant to report a history of induced abortion than are women with breast cancer." [11:177-180]
Does it trouble you that the only study specifically commissioned by the NCI was not only disparaged in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, but was omitted from the NCI's new web page discussing this research, along with 31 other studies exploring the link? It reported a statistically significant overall increased risk of 50%. [Daling et al (1994) JNCI 86:1584-92]
Why the silence from the anti-cancer organizations?
Does it cause you any consternation that scientists at the NCI and in other parts of the world were researching a link between abortion and breast cancer for 45 years while abortions were being aggressively peddled, yet not a word of it was ever breathed to women, many of whom might have found this information material to their decisions to have abortions?
Does it trouble you that the American Cancer Society's researcher, Phyllis Wingo, claimed not to have been able to reach any "definitive conclusions" in her 1997 review, although she reported quite the opposite conclusion when she was employed by the Centers for Disease Control in 1986? [Cancer Causes Control, 8:93-108]
She and Bruce Stadel of the National Institutes of Health and two other prominent researchers co-authored a letter to the Lancet (which you call "one of the most respected international medical journals") and said, "Induced abortion before first term pregnancy increases the risk of breast cancer." [Feb. 22, 1986, p. 436]
In 1997 there were 10 more studies implicating abortion than there were in 1986, and 8 were statistically significant. Does the polarity of her conclusions cause you any consternation?
Yet, why are the anti-cancer organizations complacent about her overt bias?
Does it disturb you that even 1997 Melbye et al., as cited by you from the New England Journal of Medicine, reported a statistically significant increased risk of 89% for women choosing an abortion after 18-weeks gestation? You seem to put a lot of faith in that study. Does your group inform women about this finding? Melbye did not find an overall increased risk, and we concur with Dr. Edison Liu of the NCI that "One study doesn't make a conclusion." It cannot be used to debunk 28 others which report opposite findings.
It is odd that Dr. Susan Love's website would suggest that state legislators who favor informed consent legislation are raising "false fears." She stressed the importance of an early first full-term pregnancy by saying, "And the younger you are when you have your first child, the lower your (breast cancer) risk." [Breast Book, 1995, p. 242]
For a childless woman, doesn't an abortion delay a first full-term pregnancy, in some cases permanently? Isn't childlessness a risk factor for breast cancer? Doesn't breast feeding help to reduce a woman's risk? How is it, then, that an abortion doesn't cause breast cancer in this way? Does your group offer women this undisputed information?
Dr. Eric J. Feuer, a statistician with the NCI, told the New York Times on April 9, 2002 that the incidence of breast cancer has climbed about 1% per year since the mid-1930s, perhaps because of factors including delayed childbearing. The scientific world became aware of this in 1970 with the publication of a landmark study by MacMahon et al. in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
World Health Organization scientists reported a 3.5% risk elevation for each year that the first full-term pregnancy is delayed. They said their results, "suggested increased risk associated with abortion - contrary to the reduction in risk associated with full-term births." [43-209-21]
Yet were women told about it when abortion was legalized in 1973? Can American women who already have a high lifetime risk of 12.5% afford a 3.5% increased risk per year?
We are particularly troubled that the literature you've cited includes only two of the 37 studies exploring the link and that these two studies, on Danish and Chinese populations, are used by you to represent no elevated risk for American women.
Fifteen U.S. studies have been conducted. Thirteen report increased risk, one of which is the only statistically significant, prospective U.S. study revealing a 90% increased risk for New York State women. [Howe et al., (1989) Int. J. Epidemiol. 18:300-4]
Frank Joseph, MD, a California physician, recently offered his comments on this irregular practice: "Just what does the NCI have against scientists from the United States? They looked high and low for a study that matched their political views, and lo and behold they found just what they wanted in little Denmark. This, the Melbye/Danish study, which claimed the risk was inconclusive was the only study included on their web page. This study was so full of holes that reputable medical journals are reluctant to run it any more, without some kind of a disclaimer."
Ms. Baccelli, the day will come when women will demand an accounting from the press, medical organizations, the NCI, legislators, purported women's organizations and anti-cancer organizations, including your own. They and their orphaned children will ask you hard questions and wonder aloud whether you really care about women's health or if you're solely interested in perpetuating your organizations. Are you prepared to deal with that?
You've carelessly tossed out the accusation that we're biased. Shouldn't it matter more to you that women might be losing their lives because of abortion politics and greed? Isn't that of far greater consequence?
Let me point out that our group doesn't have a vested economic interest in this debate. The incidence of breast cancer has climbed more than 40% since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Isn't that enough?
Sincerely,Karen Malec
President
*********************************************
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
P.O. Box 152, Palos Heights, IL 60463
Toll Free 1-877-803-0102
Local Calls 1-630-226-9336
An International Women's Organization
www.AbortionBreastCancer.com
response@abortionbreastcancer.com
*************
The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition
51 Diauto Drive, Suite B
Randolph, MA 02368
781-961-7460
http://www.mbcc.org/mbcc
Probably you are right. I suspect that physiologically the abortion and miscarriage can have the same effects.
If so, then the link might be even stronger since fewer cases will be left for other reasons.
The results of abortion must be much worse, miscarriage happens through the internal body process which might be less harmful and the abortion adds the horrible moral burden (real even if supressed by the liberal ideology).
In Polish anti-abortion law the woman together with the aborted child is considered a victim (on the assumption that she acted out of ignorance, brainwashed or under the pressure)- the guilty are the people who performed abortion.
No sane woman knowing the facts can decide for abortion of her child (excluding some extreme circumstances like rape, incest etc ... ).
I totally agree. Where misscariage is a natural way for you body to react to one thing or another. Abortion is an unnatural assult on the body. I do know the risk of misscariage after an abortion is greater then before. It does damage to the lining of the uterus. And also quite often damages the cervix.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.