The National Cancer Institute gained a reputation for putting politics over science when it did everything possible to deny dissenting opinion during a meeting to establish whether or not a link exists between abortion and breast cancer. But now, the main NCI acivist who got the agency to deny the abortion-breast cancer link has co-authored a study admitting the abortion-breast cancer link is true, calling it a “known risk factor.” Here’s the story as reported by LifeNews.com.
Scientists and educators about the abortion-breast cancer link point to a new study that shows a top NCI official may be re-thinking the refusal to acknowledge the link. The study, conducted by Jessica Dolle, appears in the April, 2009 issue of the prestigious cancer epidemiology journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
The Dolle study, conducted with the prestigious Janet Daling group of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle — one of the first to receive recognition for highlighting the abortion-breast cancer link — concerns the link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer.
The study examined women for triple-negative breast cancer, a subset of breast cancer cases with a particularly aggressive and treatment-resistant cancer type. The data yielded a strong association between TNBC and oral contraceptives and found a 320% risk increase for breast cancer over those who never used contraception.
When it comes to the abortion link, the study did not produce any new results but it cited the Daling studies from 1994 and 1996 that showed between a 20 and 50 percent increased breast cancer risk for women having abortions compare to those who carried their pregnancies to term.
As Dr. Joel Brind, a prominent breast cancer researcher, says, “what was striking was the way in which the finding of a significant ABC link was characterized.”
“Specifically, abortion appears in the data table which lists the associations found for ‘known and suspected risk factors,'” he explains. “In the text, the effect of the significant risk factors, including induced abortion, were described as ‘consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.'”
“Hence, this paper provides clear support for the existence of the abortion-breast cancer link,” Brind said.
Brind says the kicker is that one of the coauthors of this new study is Louise A. Brinton of the NCI. While the NCI maintains no abortion-breast cancer link exists, Brinton is the co-author of a study that is cited in this new research.
“Importantly, Brinton was the chief organizer for the 2003 NCI (U.S. National Cancer Institute) ‘workshop’ on ‘early reproductive events and breast cancer,’ a panel which reported that the lack of an ABC link had been ‘established,'” Brind says.
“In other words, since 2003, the NCI has firmly maintained the position that there is no ABC link; that the studies which had reported such a link were deemed unreliable. However, two of these prior studies were the very studies by the Daling group (of which one Brinton also was a co-author),” he continues.
“Now, in 2009, Brinton is on record reiterating findings of the ABC link and reporting them as ‘consistent’ with earlier studies that found induced abortion to be a risk factor,” Brind says. “Can it not therefore be argued that the NCI is backing off its denial of the ABC link? This is big news, to be sure, but no one has challenged the NCI with it, yet.”
Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, a women’s group that educates about the abortion link, calls the admission a scandal.
“Less than two months since the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending against routine mammograms for women in their forties, a second breast cancer scandal involving a U.S. government panel of experts has come to light which has implications for healthcare reform,” she told LifeNews.com.
“Although the study was published nine months ago, the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women,” she added.
She says Dolle’s team reported in Table 1 a statistically significant 40% risk increase for women who have had abortions and listed it among “known and suspected risk factors.”
“Obviously, more women will die of breast cancer if the NCI fails in its duty to warn about the risks of OCs and abortion and if government funds are used to pay for both as a part of any healthcare bill,” Malec said.
Last year, studies from Turkey and China also reported statistically significant risk increases for women who had abortions.
If you are a woman who has had an abortion, this information means that you need to consider a couple of actions:

• Learn everything you can about how your can significantly lower your risk of breast cancer by proper diet, exercise, and sleep,
• Be sure to discuss breast cancer screening with our primary care physician, and
• Strongly consider seeing a post-abortion counselor. You can find one through your nearest Crisis Pregnancy Center or by contacting CareNet here.

Here are some of my other posts on the topic:

• The Dark Side of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
• Surgeon Reports Abortion Ups Breast Cancer Risk
• New Study Finds 66 Percent Increased Breast Cancer Risk After Abortion

Related web sites:

• Brind analysis of new study
• Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer