COMMENTARY ON
CHINESE STUDIES AND THE STUDY,
XING ET AL. 2009
Professor Joel Brind (Baruch College, City University of New York)
maintains that Chinese studies underestimate the risk because of the
high prevalence of abortion in China. In his review of 10 prospective
studies on the ABC link for the Journal of American Physicians and
Surgeons in December, 2005, Professor Brind explained that it's hard to
do an epidemiological study accurately in communist countries where
exposure to abortion affects most of the study population. [1]
In the study, Xing et al., the prevalence of abortion is quite high at
about 56% overall in this population. Because abortion is so prevalent
in the population, women in the small, unexposed population (the
comparison group) are a minority group and do not represent a typical
population. Rather, they're atypical because they represent a high-risk
subgroup. Women without abortions in China are more likely to be
childless or to have late FFTPs, which are accepted risk factors for
breast cancer.
The Chinese government has a one-child-per-couple policy in which women
are forcibly aborted after FFTP. Over 90% of abortions are performed on
women with a child. Childbearing is known to provide a reduction in
risk over the long-term. Women with abortions have had their risk
lowered because they have had early FFTPs (unlike Western nations where
most abortions occur during the most carcinogenic time in a woman's
life - before FFTP). Therefore, in a Chinese study, the protective
effect of early FFTP masquerades as the protective effect of
abortion. An FFTP reduces risk by maturing 85% of the mother's
cancer-susceptible breast lobules into permanently cancer-resistant
lobules. The younger a woman is at FFTP, the lower her breast cancer
risk is.
Reference:
1. Brind J. Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast
cancer: A critical review of recent studies based on prospective data.
J Am Phys Surg Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter 2005) 105-110. Available at: <
http://www.jpands.org/vol10no4/brind.pdf>.
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