"Breast Cancer's
Link to Abortion: The Daily
Iowan Implies Catholic
Doctors Can't Do Science"
By Karen Malec,
president, Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
On two occasions
early in November, The Daily Iowan's
opinion editor, Shawn Gude, invited a reader by the name of Rebecca
Curtis to send him a 600-word rebuttal in response to a guest opinion
written by University of Iowa law students, Amber Fricke and Amy Hirst,
on October 27, 2009 that incorrectly stated that abortion does not
increase breast cancer risk. [1]
Curtis sent The Daily
Iowan a rebuttal, but Gude
rejected it on November 5 and invited her to re-write it. She quickly
responded by sending him a revised rebuttal, but on November
9, he rejected that too. Gude explained to Curtis, "While I appreciate
your submission, I remain skeptical of some of your sources."
Gude objected that
Curtis had cited research published in The Linacre
Quarterly, a publication of the Catholic Medical
Association, and the Journal of
American Physicians and Surgeons,
a publication of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,
even though both publications are peer-reviewed medical journals and
the authors of the research papers in question are esteemed,
international experts on the abortion-breast cancer link. [8,9]
(The
term "peer-reviewed" means that the scientific papers have been
evaluated by an impartial panel of experts who recommend the papers for
publication or rejection.)
It
appears that Gude and other editors had held Curtis' commentary to a
higher standard of scrutiny than the commentary by Fricke and
Hirst. The editors permitted Fricke and Hirst to cite the
pro-abortion
Guttmacher Institute, as well as two studies that have been proven in
the New England
Journal of Medicine and the Journal of
American Physicians and Surgeons
to be fatally flawed. [2,3,4,5] Fricke and Hirst, who
are members of
the euphemistically named University of Iowa Law Students for
Reproductive Justice, also cited the American Cancer Society's web
page, "Is Abortion Linked to Breast Cancer?" [6]
Had
the editors at the paper conducted a 5-minute search on PubMed, they
would have learned that one of Fricke and Hirst's citations, a study
named Melbye et al. 1997, actually reported a statistically
significant
89% risk increase for women who have abortions after 18 weeks
gestation, although researchers found no overall increase in risk. [2]
(The American Cancer Society insults women's intelligence by using this
study to deny an abortion-breast cancer link.)
Furthermore,
Melbye's team found a dose effect of 3% per week of gestation until the
abortion takes place, thereby fulfilling one of the criteria needed for
establishing a cause-effect relationship. In other words, the longer a
pregnant woman is exposed to the cancer-causing effects of an elevated
estrogen level before her abortion takes place, the greater her breast
cancer risk is (provided the abortion occurs before 32 weeks
gestation). The breasts grow during a normal pregnancy because estrogen
stimulates the mother's cancer-susceptible lobules to multiply. The
longer she is pregnant before her abortion takes place, the more places
she grows for cancers to start.
Breast
cancer risk plunges at 32 weeks and continues to plunge for each week
thereafter until delivery at 40 weeks, as the fetus produces hormones
that mature an increasing number of the mother's breast lobules into
permanently cancer-resistant lobules. [7,8] By 40 weeks, 85% of the
lobules are permanently cancer-resistant. Then, the mother is left with
fewer places in her breasts for cancers to start. (That explains why
full term pregnancy is protective against breast cancer.)
If The Daily Iowan's
editors had conducted a PubMed search, they would have discovered a
1999 study by Melbye's team reporting that premature birth before 32
weeks gestation more than doubles breast cancer risk (a finding that
supports an independent link between abortion and breast cancer). [7]
Early premature birth, like abortion, is a short pregnancy exposing the
mother's cancer-susceptible breast lobules to virtually the same
pregnancy hormones, which result in the same structural changes and
leave her with more places for breast cancers to start.
Instead of
considering the scientific evidence on how the breasts develop and
function that had been presented in the journal,The Linacre
Quarterly, Gude and his colleagues decided to shoot
its messengers. [8] Gude wrote to Curtis that he was "uneasy" about the use of
a source from The Linacre
Quarterly, which "exists to uphold
the principles of the Catholic faith and morality as related to the
science and practice of medicine."
What
was Gude implying? That Catholic doctors can't do science? That they
bend science to fit their religious beliefs? The implication is that
Catholic doctors are incapable of objectivity when it comes to
scientific research on abortion, unlike doctors of other faiths and
atheists and agnostics (none of whom could possibly be biased in favor
of abortion). If Gude had dared to imply that a Jewish medical
journal
was not credible because it exists to uphold the Jewish faith in the
science and practice of medicine, consider the outrage that would
follow.
Bias
is not exclusively a one-way street that occurs only in the pro-life
camp, but when bias goes the opposite way, in the direction of the
pro-abortion camp, abortion enthusiasts in the media are indifferent,
even if that bias endangers women's lives. For example, although cancer
experts universally consider childbearing to be protective against
breast cancer and an independent link between abortion and breast
cancer has been studied for 53 years, cancer fundraising groups, like
Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Breast Cancer Action and the National
Breast Cancer Coalition, have included radicals among their leaders who
had previously been associated with Planned Parenthood, NARAL
Pro-Choice America and the American Civil Liberties Union. Why would it
be in their interest to educate women about the three ways that
abortion raises breast cancer risk?
Dr.
Leslie Bernstein's bias in favor of abortion is overt, but no one would
ever dream of insulting her by associating her religious faith (or lack
of faith) with the way she has conducted herself as a scientist.
Bernstein was a leader/moderator at the U.S. National Cancer
Institute's phony workshop on the abortion-breast cancer link in
2003. After that workshop, she told CancerPage.com why she doesn't
want
women to know that abortion raises breast cancer risk. Note that she
acknowledged that the younger a woman is when she has her first birth,
the lower her breast cancer risk is. (It can't be denied that abortion
is used to delay first full term pregnancies.) Bernstein said:
"The
biggest bang for the buck is the first birth, and the younger you are,
the better off you are. I would never be a proponent of going around
and telling them that having babies is the way to reduce your risk....
I don't want the issue relating to induced abortion to breast cancer
risk to be part of the mix of the discussion of induced abortion, its
legality, its continued availability." [10]
Imagine
the howls among abortion enthusiasts in the media if a reverse scenario
had taken place. Pretend that Bernstein had been anti-abortion and had
said she didn't want women to know there were health benefits
associated with having an abortion (not that there really are health
benefits). There would be no end to the doleful wailing among those
members of the press, and the U.S. National Cancer Institute would
resemble the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in
1789.
After hearing
that The Daily Iowan's opinion editor
had objected to a citation from The Linacre
Quarterly, one physician declared that if the facts
presented in that journal had been
published on a bathroom wall, on parchment, on toilet paper or in
the National
Enquirer, they would still
remain biological facts. If The Daily Iowan's editors had
bothered to review the secondary references listed at the end of the
article in The Linacre
Quarterly, they would have found studies
published in medical journals with politically correct names, such as
the New England
Journal of Medicine, Lancet, British Journal of
Cancer, and Breast Cancer
Research and Treatment. [8]
Gude also objected
that Curtis used the Journal of
American Physicians and Surgeons as
a source. [9] He told Curtis that the Journal is "a political
non-profit" (a description that could be be applied to the American
Medical Association); and he criticized the Journal for publishing
articles that challenged scientific hypotheses concerning global
warming and HIV/AIDS. He claimed,
"It
has also published reports claiming 'increases in (atmospheric carbon
dioxide) during the 20th and 21st centuries have produced no
deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate' and that HIV
doesn't cause AIDS."
Gude
said both the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organization
deny the abortion-breast cancer link. If Gude had been an opinion
editor during the 1930's, would he have also rejected a commentary
discussing Einstein's theory of relativity because 100 scientists had
written essays disparaging it?
Jane
Orient, MD, executive director of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, commented on Gude's arguments. She wrote:
"How can one
respond to this kind of attack? It is not a good faith assessment. But
one might say:
"The
validity of a scientific paper should be assessed by reading it, not by
skimming the table of contents of the journal that published it.
"The Daily Iowan assumes the
truth of the catastrophic anthropogenic
global warming hypothesis,
which is based solely on UN computer models, the predictions of
which
are refuted by actual observations. Around 32,000 American scientists
are on the record as agreeing with the statement that The Daily Iowan quotes.
"The
Daily Iowan assumes the truth of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis; the Journal
has published a couple of articles pointing to difficulties with it.
All scientific hypotheses are subject to efforts to disprove them; that
is the nature of science.
"Apparently,
the fact that WHO (World Health Organization), a heavily politicized
international agency, questioned the abortion-breast cancer link
tells
The Daily Iowan it must be not worth looking at.
"This is
apparently the reasoning process used by The Daily Iowan:
"A peer-reviewed
scientific journal's publication of articles
criticizing politically correct theories means everything in
the the Journal is worthless.
"A political
agency's criticism of a politically incorrect hypothesis about
an ABC
(abortion-breast cancer) link means that all the evidence for an ABC
link is worthless.
"What conclusions
can one reach about the critical thinking
skills, the scientific
understanding, or the journalistic standards of The Daily Iowan?"
Breast
cancer is an extremely common disease, and abortion is a common,
elective procedure. Under these circumstances, what possible right do
journalists have to commit journalistic malpractice by ignoring the
opinion of eight medical organizations that acknowledge that abortion
raises breast cancer risk, independently of the recognized breast
cancer risk of abortion - the loss of the protective effect of
childbearing?
Consequently, the
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is presenting the The Daily Iowan's editors with
two easy challenges that will help them cast light on the cancer
fundraising industry's truthfulness.
First, no expert
has ever challenged or even attempted to refute the biological basis
for the link presented in The Linacre
Quarterly or
anywhere else, for that matter. If the editors have a sincere desire to
protect women's health, then why not ask the American Cancer
Society,
the U.S. National Cancer Institute and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to
review Dr. Angela Lanfranchi's paper in The Linacre
Quarterly and identify any
errors? Why
not challenge them to refute the biological reasons for the
abortion-breast cancer link? Cancer groups won't do it because
Lanfranchi's presentation is physiologically correct.
Second,
since medical texts acknowledge that childlessness, delayed first full
term pregnancy and small family size raise breast cancer risk, the
editors should ask the cancer fundraising industry two simple questions
with two obvious answers. If a woman aborts all of her pregnancies,
will she be childless? Also, who has the greater breast cancer
risk -
the 15-year-old who has an abortion or the one who has a full term
pregnancy? The second question has to do with the recognized breast
cancer risk of abortion - the loss of the protective effect of
childbearing.
Even
Dr. Lynn Rosenberg (Boston Medical School), an expert witness for
Florida abortion providers in 1999 was forced to set aside the cancer
establishment's intellectual dishonesty when she testified under oath
as an expert witness for the Center for Reproductive Rights in a
lawsuit challenging Florida's parental notification law. Preferring not
to perjure herself by pretending that abortion that abortion does not
cause women to delay their first full term pregnancies, she said she
agreed with this statement:
"A
woman who finds herself pregnant at age 15 will have a higher breast
cancer risk if she chooses to abort that pregnancy than if she carries
the pregnancy to term, correct?" [11]
Breast
cancer increases with age at first full term pregnancy. A delayed first
full term pregnancy lengthens the period between puberty and first full
term pregnancy (the "susceptibility window") when nearly all of the
breast lobules are immature and cancer-susceptible and exposed to the
cancer-causing effects of estrogen increases during monthly menstrual
cycles, resulting in an accumulation of the effects of cancer-causing
substances.
Since
the loss of the protective effect of childbearing is considered settled
science, most studies on the abortion-breast cancer link do not compare
the effect of having an abortion with the effect of having a full term
pregnancy. Rather, most studies compare the effect of having an
abortion with the effect of not having had that pregnancy (thereby
addressing the question of an independent link - whether abortion
further raises risk by leaving the breasts with more places for cancers
to start).
Certainly,
it would be bad social policy to encourage unmarried teens and young
women to have babies. However, Professor Joel Brind from Baruch
College, City University of New York, has rightly argued that the
already-pregnant woman has only two realistic choices. Either she
aborts, or she has a baby. She doesn't have
the choice of never having had that pregnancy.
Her doctor is ethically and legally obligated to obtain informed
consent from her before performing an abortion. That means telling her
that experts agree if she chooses an abortion, her risk of developing
breast cancer will be greater than it will be if she chooses to have a
baby(because she is delaying her first full term pregnancy). The woman
may be able to sue her doctor for medical malpractice if he fails to
provide her with this minimal information (as five women have
successfully sued their doctors who failed to warn them about the risks
of breast cancer and emotional harm). [12]
It
takes a special kind of cruelty to cover up a risk that has caused 1.5
million Americans to develop breast cancer and 300,000 deaths since
1973 (based on 50 million abortions, a 30% increased risk of breast
cancer for women with abortions, and a 10% lifetime risk for the
average American woman without abortion).
The
American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer
groups could have done a great deal of good by telling women the truth
about the abortion-breast cancer link. Instead, they use studies that
have been proven in medical journals to be significantly flawed (even
fraudulent) to make their argument that abortion does not raise breast
cancer risk. [13-22]
They
didn't tell women the truth about the risks of using the pill and
combined hormone replacement therapy, although the data were available
in the 1980s. Now they're not telling women the truth about the
abortion-breast cancer link. Biased members of the media are their
enablers.
References:
2. Melbye
M, Wohlfahrt J, Olson JH, Frisch M, Westergaard T, Helweg-Larsen K,
Andersen PK. Induced abortion and the risk of breast cancer. N Engl J Med 1997;336:81-85.
3. Michels
K, Xue Fei, Colditz G., Willett W. Induced and Spontaneous Abortion and
Incidence of Breast Cancer Among Young Women. Arch Int Med 2007;167:814-820.
4. Brind J,
Chinchilli VM. Letter. Induced abortion and the risk of breast
cancer. N Engl J Med 1997;336:1834-1835.
5. Brind J.
Induced abortion and breast cancer: A critical analysis of the
report of the Harvard Nurses Study II. J Am Phys Surg 2007;12(2)38-39.
Available
at:
<http://www.jpands.org/vol12no2/brind.pdf>.
7. Melbye M,
Wohlfahrt J, Andersen A-M N, Westergaard T, Andersen PK. Preterm
delivery and risk of breast cancer. Bri J Cancer 1999;80:609-13.
9. 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>.
10. Lowe
RM, NCI scientific panel concludes abortion has no impact on breast
cancer risk. CancerPage.com, March 3, 2003. Available at:
<http://www.cancerpage.com/news/article.asp?id=5601>.
Accessed November 18, 2009.
11.
Rosenberg (1999) NW FL Women's Health vs. State of FL, FL Circuit Ct.,
2nd circ., videotape deposition of 11/18/99, pp. 77-78. Available
at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/rosenberg's_testimony.htm
12. See the
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer's Legal Issues web page at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/Your_Rights.htm
13. Brind J.
Breast cancer in relation to abortion: results from the EPIC study. Int J Cancer. 2008 Feb
15;122(4):960-1.
14. Brind
J. California Teachers Study report on incomplete pregnancy
is flawed. Contraception 2009;Mar;79(3):240.
15. Brind
J. The abortion-breast cancer connection. National Catholic
Bioethics Quarterly Summer 2005; p. 303-329. Available at: <http://www.AbortionBreastCancer.com/Brind_NCBQ.PDF>.
16. Lanfranchi A. The
abortion-breast cancer link revisited. Ethics and
Medics (November 2004) Vol. 29, No. 11, p. 1-4. Available at:http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/041120/index.htm
17. Furton E.
Editorial. The corruption of science by ideology. Ethics and
Medics (Dec. 2004) Vol. 29, No. 11, p. 1-2. Available
at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/E+MDec2004-EFurtonarticle.PDF
18. Schlafly A.
Legal implications of a link between abortion and breast cancer. J Am Phys
Surgeons2005;10:11-14. Available at:http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/aschlafly.pdf
19. Lanfranchi A.
The science, studies and sociology of the abortion-breast cancer
link. Research
Bulletin 2005;18:1-8. Available at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/June2005.pdf
20. Lanfranchi A.
The breast physiology and the epidemiology of the abortion breast
cancer link. Imago Hominis 2005;12(3):
228-236. http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/Lanfranchi060201.pdf
21. Brind J.
Induced Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk: A Critical Analysis of the
Report of the Harvard Nurses Study II. Journal of
American Physicians and Surgeons(Summer 2007) Vol.
12, No. 2, p. 38-39. Available at: <http://www.jpands.org/vol12no2/brind.pdf>.
22. Lanfranchi, A.
The federal government and academic texts as barriers to informed
consent. J Am Phys Surg (Spring
2008). Available at: <http://www.jpands.org/vol13no1/lanfranchi.pdf>.
