ST. PAUL, April 15, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Minnesota Health Department has decided to eliminate information from its web-site warning about a link between abortion and increased breast cancer risk. The Health Department, under Minnesota disclosure laws, must post information about possible dangers of abortion. The decision to change the information was prompted by the publication of seemingly contrary evidence claiming there is no proven link between abortion and breast cancer.
One study, appearing in the March edition of the British journal, the Lancet, claimed “What we can truly rule out is an increased risk (of breast cancer),” according to co-author Dr. Valerie Beral. The study purportedly examined 53 studies in 16 countries. However, Dr. Joel Brind, a foremost expert on the topic told LifeSiteNews.com that the study published in Lancet is easily refuted, as reported by LifeSiteNews.com, available at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/mar/04032602.html Dr. Brind explained that the researchers excluded studies which did not suit their agenda which was to deny any link between breast cancer and abortion. For example, said Dr. Brind, “they excluded studies in some cases saying that the original authors could not be located.” Following that logic, said Dr. Brind, “We ought to consider going back to assuming that the sun revolves around the earth since it sure looks like that to me, and we have looked all around the university of Krakow in Poland and we cannot locate Dr. Copernicus so we should throw out his data.” While the study claimed to use better studies only and exclude what it deemed unreliable studies, it failed to provide a compelling reason for denying the validity of the rejected studies. Karen Malec of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer explained that Beral rejected studies using women’s self-reports of abortion histories (retrospective studies) based on a theoretical problem called “report bias”. The theory, which several scientific teams have debunked, declared that healthy women lie about their abortions more often than do breast cancer patients. Conveniently for Beral, rejecting retrospective studies allowed her to eliminate 28 major studies, all of which report risk elevations among women who choose abortions. Overall, said Brind, the Beral study is “a horrible piece of work.” Brind told LifeSiteNews.com he would be submitting a letter to the editor of the Lancet pointing out the “very misleading” aspects of the study. In 1994, Dr. Janet Daling, a cancer researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, reported on the effects of abortion on breast cancer incidence. Her findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute revealed that women under age 18 who had an induced abortion had an increased breast cancer risk of 150%. Her findings also revealed that virtually all women who had abortions and had a family history of breast cancer also had the disease by age 50. Daling reported that, overall, women who have an induced abortion have an increased breast cancer risk of 50%. Dr. Janet Daling describes herself as ‘pro-choice’.
Additionally, a 1993 edition of the Journal of the National Medical Association revealed that black women of age 50 and above who had at least one induced abortion had an increased breast cancer risk of 370%.
See local coverage: https://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/8434199.htm See the Lancet study: https://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9414/full/llan.363.9414.original_research.29138.1 Read Dr. Daling’s findings at: https://www.pregnantpause.org/safe/bcancer2.htm See Joel Brind’s April 8, 2004 detailed response Abortion and Breast Cancer: Only fuzzy math can make the ABC link disappear https://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/040413/index.htm