Breast cancer and abortion: the facts

The Age ^ | February 17 2003 | Dr Angela Lanfranchi

[nickcarraway]

I think black women have higher rates of breast cancer and death from breast cancer. Obviously abortion is not the only risk factor-but it can be an extreme one.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[pyx]

An agenda maybe!

Yours ?

Here I was thinking Libertarians didn't believe in initiating force and yet, jamming a pair of scissors into the base of an infant's skull and decapitating and dismembering him inside the birth canal before sucking his parts into a sink somehow doesn't sound too passive.

[briant]

Miscarriages do not increase breast cancer risk, since they are associated with low oestrogen levels that do not cause breast growth

Junk science alert!

First, most miscarriages are caused by a genetic defect in the fetus, not by low estrogen levels in the mother.

I can't tell why you have a problem whith the statment you italicized.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Because 1) low estrogen is NOT the cause of most miscarriages, 2) in the cases where it is, the women in question would have a lower than normal risk for breast cancer to begin with, and 3) in the majority of miscarriages, which are NOT caused by low estrogen, the author's claim of a scientific explanation for a different effect on breast cancer risk depending on whether a first trimester pregnancy is terminated naturally or artificially, goes out the window -- because it was based on hte non-factual allegation that low estrogen is the cause for the difference.

BTW, last year abortion-breast-cancer-link promoter Saundra Duffy posted a transcript of an interview with the leading "researcher" who touts this link, Dr. Joel Brind, in which he said his research showed that miscarriage caused the same elevated breast cancer risk as induced abortions. I think he's changed his tune since then, as he realized it wasn't popular with the let's-fight-abortion-by-scaring-women-about-breast-cancer crowd, which is basically his only audience.

[GovernmentShrinker]

By whom? The fat rights activists? All the real research I've seen continues to say there's a clear connection.

[GovernmentShrinker]

The increased risk of breast cancer from excess weight is both solidly proven and statistically higher than the abortion-breast-cancer-link researchers claims of the risk increase from abortion. So if the risk is so small from increased weight that it's not worth doctors and counselors bringing it up routinely, why should anyone be expected to bring up the smaller ALLEGED risk from abortion?

Either it's important to warn women about ways they can reduce their risk of breast cancer or it isn't. If prospective abortion is the only situation in which abortion-breast-cancer-link activists are chastising doctors and counselors for not discussing breast cancer risk with patients (and it is), then obviously reducing breast cancer is not their real objective.

[Scupoli]

I'm sorry but from what I have seen you have absolutely zero medical knowledge or experience. You do not even know the basics of obstetrical science. I do not know what "studies" you are looking at, but all the responsible medical research thus far has disputed a link. The only people continuing in this direction are desperate pro-aborts. Even pro-abortion physicians have given up on this link. It works in theory but is negligible in reality.

There is no epidemic of breast cancer among fat women. Plenty of thin women get it.

[Scupoli]

So if the risk is so small from increased weight that it's not worth doctors and counselors bringing it up routinely

Because more women die from heart disease than breast cancer and obesity is a factor in a multitude of diseases, including some but not all types of cancer.

[briant]

I thought he was saying that the spontaneous abortions were correlated with low estrogen not caused by it. E.g., a genetic defect may be sensed and the normal hormonal response may not occur, and a deliberate abortion correlated with the normal estrogen levels for that time of pregancy and the effect on the breast they have could lead to problems if tampered with in mid- stream. Or something along those lines.

I don't know if he is bs'ing or not but that was what I though the was saying.

[Saundra Duffy]

Major ping. www.AbortionBreastCancer.com

[Saundra Duffy]

Politics Sours Science at National Cancer Institute 3/4/2003

“The NCI should be above politics, and not a factory for junk science.”

Washington, D.C. – Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, warned the National Cancer Institute (NCI) not to post misinformation on the agency Web site denying the link between abortion and breast cancer.

“The National Cancer Institute has decided that protecting women's health is less important than avoiding politically sensitive topics, and they should be ashamed,” said Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America. “What was supposed to be a colloquium among scientists about the link between induced abortion and subsequent breast cancer turned into a whitewash.

"The NCI panelists dismissed the best research on the subject -- including that commissioned by the NCI itself -- on the patronizing claim that women can't be expected to tell the truth about their own medical history.”

NCI did not invite Janet Dahling, from the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center in Seattle, to present a paper at the conference. She was the chief researcher in a study funded by NCI that found a strong relationship between abortion and breast cancer.

The conference relied almost solely on a defective study of Danish medical records. The Danish records survey does not count abortions prior to 1973, even though abortion had been legal in Denmark since the 1930s, thereby eliminating all the abortion-related cancer among older women in the sample cohort. In addition, in its review of the cases of younger women, the Danish survey confirms that higher rates of breast cancer are found among abortion survivors.

“The patent dishonesty of the NCI's report on this subject raises real doubts about the Institute's credibility,” said Rios. “The NCI should be above politics, and not a factory for junk science.”

For Information Contact:
Rebecca Riggs
(202) 488-7000
media.cwfa.org

[FourtySeven]

Interesting. Excellent article, thanks; one for the bookmarks!