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Dear Friends:
An editor of a bioethics journal, Ethics and Medics, has written a scathing editorial criticizing the British journal Lancet in particular and the scientific community in general for allowing ideology to corrupt science. The editorial by Ed Furton, MA, Ph.D. follows an article by Associate Professor of Surgery Angela Lanfranchi, MD, FACS in Ethics and Medics last month. Lanfranchi identified serious flaws in a Lancet "collaborative review" of the abortion-breast cancer research by Valerie Beral and her colleagues at Oxford. Here are some of Furton's quotes:
"The published study in the Lancet, purportedly one of the most definitive 'meta-analyses' yet carried out, was seriously flawed. Specifically, it omitted many studies that showed a link between abortion and breast cancer - and as Dr. Lanfranchi showed in our November 2004 issue, Beral and company could give no good reasons for those omissions....
"When a leading scientific journal allows its pages to be used as a political platform, and sets aside objective standards of scientific research, we must begin to wonder whether the spirit of (Jacques) Derrida has infected even scientific discourse....
"Picking conclusions ahead of time, and arrnging the evidence to support them, will only serve to undermine the respect that scientific inquiry deserves....
"The unwillingness of scientists to speak out against the shoddy research that is being advanced by those who deny the abortion-breast cancer link is a very serious breach....
"When the public learns that a causal link between abortion and breast cancer has been downplayed by the scientific community - for reasons that are ideological rather than factual - the feeling of betrayal will be strong...."
Furton's editorial is featured (below) in our "Abortion-Breast Cancer News Headlines."
Many in the news media, including CBS News and the Associated Press (AP), have held up the Lancet's review article as authoritative. Laura Meckler at the AP has no plans to alert women to this editorial because she claims the AP doesn't write about opinion pieces.
There are three problems with this: 1) Meckler has in her possession a factual article by Dr. Lanfranchi which identifies the flaws in the Lancet article; 2) Meckler has not told women that five medical groups recognize a causal relationship and a sixth group called on doctors last year to warn patients of a "highly plausible" relationship; and 3) Women are going to die because many secular journalists are too emotionally entangled with abortion and refuse to tell the truth.
Perhaps this will change when the daughters of journalists develop breast cancer after having had abortions.
CBS News did a program on informed consent legislation in the states on Thanksgiving Day. Its correspondents held up the Lancet review article as authoritative despite having been informed about Furton's editorial on the preceding day. They also cited as authoritative the U.S. National Cancer Institute's statement denying the link in 2003.
Ironically, another segment on the same program revealed that the government isn't a good source of health information because scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes for Health have a "cozy" relationship with pharmaceutical companies who pay the scientists to moonlight as consultants.
CBS News was basically reporting that government scientists can be bought. It's unfortunate that CBS journalists couldn't connect the dots to the abortion-breast cancer cover up.
CBS News interviewed me, but did not use the interview. If it had been used, then women might have learned too much - that six medical groups recognize the link.
CBS News journalists invited an expert, Jeanette Joyce, to their studio for an interview, but censored her credentials. Jeanette is a mammography educator, registered mammography technologist and mammography lecturer. She's spent many years researching and writing about breast cancer and breast imaging. She is on two boards of directors - the coalition's board and the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute's board.
However, CBS News only gave her first name and identified her as a breast cancer survivor who'd had an abortion. Its correspondent falsely claimed that Jeanette did not want her last name used.
Are there any other circumstances, other than when CBS is discussing the abortion-breast cancer link, that its journalists invite an expert to its studio for an interview, but do not identify that person as an expert? In the wake of the scandal involving Dan Rather's use of forged documents, one might have expected CBS to be up to higher standards of professionalism and integrity.
Action Items:
1) Distribute this document far and wide.
2) Contact CBS News at:
Ben Ferguson
fergusonb@cbsnews.com
Cynthia Bowers
bowersc@cbsnews.com
3) Contact the Associated Press at:
Laura Meckler
lmeckler@ap.org
Sincerely,
Karen Malec
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
ABORTION-BREAST CANCER NEWS HEADLINES
"The Corruption of Science by Ideology" (PDF)
By Ed Furton, MA, Ph.D.
Ethics and Medics
December 2004
"Permission to reprint granted by: The National Catholic Bioethics Center, 6399 Drexel Rd., Philadelphia, PA 19151, 215-877-2660 (v); 215-877-2688 (f); visit www.ncbcenter.org."
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.
Tax-deductible, credit card donations can be made at
www.AbortionBreastCancer.com. Donations can be mailed to: the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, P.O. Box 957133, Hoffman Estates, IL 60195. The IRS recognizes the coalition as a 501(c)3 organization.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Women's Injury Network
www.womensinjurynetwork.org
Breast Cancer Prevention Institute
www.BCPInstitute.org
Polycarp Research Institute
www.polycarp.org
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