Dear Friends:

Research being published in the British journal The Lancet on Friday purportedly examined 53 studies in 16 countries on the abortion-breast cancer link.  Studies using women's self-reports of abortion histories (retrospective studies) were said to be corrupted.  Why?  Scientists declared that healthy women lie about their abortions more often than do breast cancer patients.  This is a theoretical problem called "report bias" which several teams have shown does not exist. It just so happens that there are 28 retrospective studies, all of which report risk elevations among women who choose abortions.

I'm providing an article about the latest National Cancer Institute study, Mahue-Giangreco et al. 2003.  The article shoots down report bias theory and provides a far more reasonable theory.

Scientists are "cooking the books" in order to disparage the abortion-breast cancer link. Their efforts are not only grossly unethical, but they're also anti-woman.

Sincerely,
Karen Malec
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
www.AbortionBreastCancer.com


ABORTION-BREAST CANCER NEWS HEADLINES

Scientists' Attempt to Dismiss 28 Abortion-Breast Cancer Studies / Latest Government Funded Study Provides Evidence Supporting a More Logical Alternative to Report Bias / Mahue-Giangreco et al. 2003 Had Largest Patient Refusal Rate of All ABC Studies

For 13 years, the abortion industry and its supporters in government, science and medicine have used a phantom theory called "report bias" to dismiss over two dozen epidemiological studies supporting abortion as one of the causes of breast cancer.  They've done this even though the explanation for the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link makes good biological sense and no scientist dares to challenge it.

One study reporting a link between abortion and the disease used medical records - not women's reports of abortion histories - for its data.  That ruled out any chance of report bias.  Its researchers found a statistically significant 90% risk elevation among New York State women procuring abortions. [1] Even so, abortion supporters in the cancer fundraising business maintained that the ABC research was invalid.  Why?

Twenty-eight studies used women's reports of their abortion histories.  Cancer fundraising businesses claimed that women's reports are unreliable.  What they were saying was that women agree to join studies exploring the ABC link, but then they decide to lie about their abortion histories.  The cancer establishment has offered varying explanations why 28 studies found that breast cancer patients are more likely than healthy women to have had abortions.

First, cancer fundraising businesses argued that more cancer patients than healthy women "over report" their abortions.  In other words, patients are more likely than healthy women are to accuse themselves of having had abortions they never really had. [2]  As ridiculous as this might seem, abortion supporters used this argument to debunk the ABC link for seven years.  Then, two teams of scientists condemned the idea, and in 1998 its original proponents withdrew their claim of having found credible evidence of report bias. [3,4,5]

Next, cancer fundraising businesses argued that healthy women are more likely than cancer patients to "under report" their abortions.  This was a fancy way of saying that healthy women lie about the abortions they've had more often than do patients.  No researchers report they've found evidence of under reporting, but such details are of little importance to the cancer establishment.  Cancer groups say one group lies more often than the other, therefore it's true.

Professor Joel Brind of Baruch College has proposed a more logical theory than report bias.  Ironically, the latest National Cancer Institute (NCI) study, Mahue-Giangreco et al. 2003, provides evidence for this better alternative. [6]

Interestingly, the NCI's leaders chose one of the study's co-authors, Leslie Bernstein, to deliver the government's anti-ABC viewpoint at the agency's 2003 workshop on the ABC link - a workshop later described as "a very big fix."  Bernstein's anti-childbearing viewpoint was the only one welcomed by the government's cancer sleuths, not the opposing views of other researchers for whom the ABC Link has been the primary focus of their research (unlike Bernstein).  In fact, Mahue-Giangreco et al. was one of three unpublished, non-peer reviewed studies used by the government and its paid scientists to disparage the ABC link.

That's why the government's anti-information ministers must have been horrified that their study which reported such a tiny risk elevation - only 5% for women who've had abortions - might actually provide evidence, which shoots down their favorite theory.

Brind has observed that, of all the ABC studies, Mahue-Giangreco et al. had the largest number of eligible patients who refused to participate as study subjects (11.5%).  What would cause so many patients to refuse to participate, other than their desire to keep their abortions secret?  Wouldn't it be more reasonable to hypothesize that women who don't want to reveal their abortion histories would choose not to participate in a study exploring an ABC link in the first place?  Does it make sense that women would agree to participate and then choose to lie about their abortion histories?  Therefore, isn't it reasonable to assume that women who've had abortions would be under represented in the study's patient group?  If so, then how would this impact scientists' findings?

Brind has suggested that the prevalence of induced abortion among patients in the study should have been 30% higher than what it was.  This would accurately reflect the prevalence of abortion in California during the years when most of the abortions in the study were performed.  If the appropriate number of post-abortive patients had participated in the study, then the correct risk elevation would have been 20%.

With this new information, will cancer fundraising businesses admit that abortion is one of the causes of breast cancer?  It's not very likely.  Why risk alienating donors and the NCI whose $4.6 billion budget funds cancer research?

Will these cancer businesses offer the ABC link to explain their own findings in their "Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer"?  The report reveals a more than 40% increase in breast cancer rates between 1987 and 1998, an increase entirely limited to the youngest of three generations - the only one which had access to legalized abortion - the Roe v. Wade generation. [7]

Traditionally, the cancer establishment has shown little or no interest in cancer prevention.  There's no money to be made. Scientists say breast cancer rates could be reduced by one-half if women start having early first full term pregnancies. They say that the earlier a woman has a first full term pregnancy, the lower her risk is for the disease. It's self-evident that abortion has changed women's childbearing patterns, but cancer fundraising businesses have made no effort to start a public awareness campaign.

What would motivate politicians, government bureaucrats, the abortion and the cancer fundraising industries to expose themselves to hard questions from millions of angry, post-abortive women by acknowledging an ABC link?  Why reduce the pool of future abortion customers, breast cancer donors and cancer walk participants among today's abortion-bound teenagers?  Why risk alienating doctors, some of whom have already been successfully sued for failing to inform patients about the ABC research?

The cancer establishment's gatekeepers of information are trying to bury these findings, just as they have consistently done so for the last 47 years.  Brind is an internationally recognized expert in this field.  He was the lead author of the only quantitative and comprehensive review and meta-analysis of the worldwide literature in 1996.  He offered his rebuttal in a letter to Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, the journal, which published Mahue-Giangreco et al. [8] Remarkably, the journal rejected the letter for publication.

Within the cancer establishment, there is no desire for an honest scientific investigation of the ABC link.  Yet, anti-ABC link scientists would have us believe that it is President Bush who plays politics with women's lives.

References:

1. Howe et al. (1989) Int J Epidemiol 18:300-4.
2. Lindefors-Harris et al. (1991) Am J Epidemiol 134:1003-1008.
3. Brind et al. (1998) J Epidemiol Community Health 52:209-11.
4. Daling et al. (1994) J Natl Cancer Inst 86:1584-92.
5. Meirik et al. (1998) J Epidemiol Community Health 52:209.
6. Mahue-Giangreco M et al. (March 2003) Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, Vol. 12, 209-214.
7. Howe et al. (June 6, 2001) Jnl Natl Cancer Inst, Vol. 93, No. 11, Figure 3.
8. Brind J et al. (1996) J Epidemiol Community Health 50:481-96.

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Please send your tax-deductible donation to: the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, P.O. Box 152, Palos Heights, IL 60463.  The IRS recognizes the coalition as a 501(c)3 organization.

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women's organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION;

Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
www.AbortionBreastCancer.com

Breast Cancer Prevention Institute
www.BCPInstitute.org

Polycarp Research Institute
www.Polycarp.org