Karen Malec and ABC have a solid ally in me and this blog. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading the scientific literature and am convinced that the data point consistently and conclusively to a link between abortion and breast cancer. Meeting Karen Malec last week in DC, I told her that Coming Home was at the service of ABC. Our wives, daughters, friends and relatives deserve far better than the Culture of Death has to offer. Karen Malec and ABC deserve all the support they can get in getting the message out. They are a 501(c)(3) for any who may wish to share in their mission, and may be contacted HERE.
I am proud to be one of the signatories to the letter mentioned in the following press release.
Press Release
Contact: Karen Malec, 847-421-4000
Date: January 25, 2010
Groups Request Congressional Investigation of National Cancer Institute’s Misinformation on Breast Cancer Risks of Abortion, Oral Contraceptives
The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer announced today it is sending a letter, signed by doctors and pro-family organizations, to President Obama and the leaders of Congress calling for an investigation of the U.S. National Cancer Institute. It puts political leaders on notice of a discrepancy between what the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) says about the breast cancer risks of abortion and oral contraceptives (OCs) – “the pill” – and what Louise Brinton, the NCI’s Chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch, has reported in her research. The letter asks Congress to investigate the NCI’s failure to issue timely warnings about breast cancer risks and asks political leaders to remove public funding for abortion from all legislation being considered by this Congress.
“As a scientist representing the official policy of the NCI, Brinton says there is no abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link,” explained Professor Joel Brind of Baruch College, City University of New York, “While as a scientist publishing her findings in a peer-reviewed medical journal, she says there is a significant ABC link. Both of these points of view rely on data that is up to 20 years old, yet both points of view have been recently–within the last few months—confirmed publicly (on the NCI website and in the Dolle study, respectively. Will the real Louise Brinton please stand up? Since this direct contradiction came to light in the public eye, she appears to have been hiding under her desk.”
The letter tells how the NCI conned women with its 2003 workshop, “Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer.” Brinton was the chief organizer of that workshop.
“The NCI puts politics ahead of women’s lives,” said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition. “That’s why we’re putting both parties on notice of the NCI’s misconduct. If they decide to watch women die, instead of cleaning house when we have prima facie evidence of a cover-up, then both parties will have to answer to angry women.”
Brinton was a co-author in a 2009 study conducted by Janet Daling’s team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and led by Jessica Dolle. The Coalition previously reported the study’s findings in a press release dated January 6, 2010. The Coalition features a YouTube video discussing researchers’ findings. The Coalition published a January 19, 2010 newsletter explaining why co-author Kathleen Malone’s claim about the study, “There are no new findings related to induced abortion…” is a lie. [2]
Researchers unequivocally stated their findings “were consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women. Specifically … induced abortion and oral contraceptive use were associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.”
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.
References:
1. Dolle J, Daling J, White E, Brinton L, Doody D, et al. Risk factors for triple-negative breast cancer in women under the age of 45 years. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(4)1157-1166.
2. RHReality.org, the marketing arm for the tobacco industry – I mean the abortion industry reported Malone’s lie in the article, “The Truth About Breast Cancer and Abortion,” By Amie Newman, January 14, 2010.
Coming Home 
This would all be more effective, and have more integrity, if the ABC critique were not so obviously overlaid with a political agenda of its own. No doubt, the NCI’s failures are likewise the result of political overlay. It is of course not a crime that an individual might act in their public capacity (or for that matter as an employee of a private employer) according to one set of policies, while in their individual capacity they participated in research that pointed in another direction. My employer may be voting for Kerry while I’m voting for Bush, or vice versa. I can’t advise “fote for Kerry” in my capacity as an employee, on company time, speaking to a customer. It is not at all clear that Dr. Brinton is a prime author of the study cited, nor that the study reflects her personal assessment with precision.
All those bits of skepticism said, there is obviously a need for a thorough, credible, well-balanced review of available data, and for substantial further research. It would make sense that any woman considering an abortion be provided by her doctor with the information that
a) this is a controversial topic in the medical field
b) there are credible opinions that there may be a link
c) further study is continuing, together with references to existing studies, should the patient wish to read them for herself.
Then, as always, everyone should step back, and allow the woman to make her own choice.
My mother was advised a few years ago to try a new blood pressure medication. My mother had a double major in chemistry and math, and asked intelligent questions. The doctor referred her to a study of the new drug, and my mother read it. She observed that the data showed no improved results for controlling blood pressure, except among diabetics, but did show a marked increase in the incidence of stroke, not distinguishing whether this also applied to diabetics. My mother is not diabetic. She declined the prescription. She later overheard the doctor telling an assistant “I gave her a reference to the study, and you know what? She read it!”
I fully support applying this sort of informed skepticism to the subject of abortion, like any other medical procedure. There are always risks to be weighed, as well as what some patients may consider to be benefits.
I do hope that President Obama, the congress, and Dr. Brinton, will respond to the letter with the comprehensive thoughtfulness I have done here, and will not reflexively reject the entire inquiry, merely because of the political veneer in which the question has so obviously been wrapped up.
SJ,
When a medication that has had prior FDA approval is found to be doing harm, the regulatory agency pulls it from the market for obvious reasons.
Not all untoward effects of a medication or a medical procedure manifest themselves in clinical trials.
The same may be said for abortion. Karen Malec is not wrapping this issue in any sort of political veneer. The truth is that Brinton and Malone have hijacked the truth. It is the scientific truth that has been bound and gagged, lest the DNC lose its central organizing principle: Abortion.
Attempting a hostage rescue may employ governmental agencies, but is not itself a political position. The first responsibility of government is to secure the safety of its citizens.
We have 50 million dead citizens and the procedure that took their lives has created sterility in untold numbers of the mothers and raised the risk of breast cancer by 40% in Brinton and Malone’s paper.
None of that is a partisan political issue. It’s a human rights issue.
Is it or is it not true that scientist Brinton’s employer (NCI) based its no-link conclusion on her science? Your Bush v. Kerry voting analogy doesn’t apply.
No, we don’t let uninformed, rather, misinformed (lied to) women make a “choice” that science says is to terminate the life of a human that increases her chance of getting breast cancer 40%.
If there was a 40% increase in cancer in individuals undergoing any other medically unnecessary surgery would we be having this discussion?
My dear BHG, we “let” misinformed people, men and women, make all kinds of decisions for themselves, because we live under a government of limited powers, not a nanny state. It is not ours, nor our government’s, place to “let” them choose or deny them a choice on the basis that they may be making a mistake.
It is, however, a legitimate concern that if information is being deliberately suppressed, then it should be released, and if there is some controversy (which there is, much as those who call themselves pro-life find it convenient to deny it), then there should be assiduous and unprejudiced further study of the matter.
If open heart surgery increased the risk of cancer by 40%, would we hear calls for the procedure to be summarily banned? Not everyone views abortion as universally medically unnecessary. I respect your right to promote facts or even allegations you believe to be relevant to everyone who will listen. But this edge of hysteria, demanding immediate prohibition, I find suspect.
SJ
Science tells us that life begins at conception. The only people who are making this controversall are idealogues who find the facts incovenient.
Do you have any stats on how many “medically necessary”? How do you define what is necessary?
Open heart surgery is ALWAYS medically necessary. Comparing a procedure that is performed as a life saving measure to one that is almostalways NOT not as absurd. You sound rather desperate if that’s thebest youcan do!
We’re on the edge of hysteria? What is suspect is your opinion that anyone who differs from you operates out of some emotional bias. We’ve been demanding an end to the murder of the unborn for years. Maternal risk of breast cancer is just one more scientific fact that adds to the urgency.
Review your posts, please, and reflect upon why you find it necessary to use so many pejoratives to characterize other people’s opinions and motivations.
SJ,
Urgency is born of facts. Hysteria is somewhat irrational. You seem to conflate the two here. You also allude to abortion as a medical procedure.
By definition, medical procedures are those interventions that promote health and save lives. Abortion does neither. Further, abortion is an intervention that kills 50% of all patients entering the ‘clinic’.
I sense a certain rising frustration in your posts as you fail to find some middle ground here. You won’t. Pro-lifers are pretty uniformly uncompromising when it comes to saving innocent human life. I urge you and others here to please envision yourselves gathered around my dining room table for Sunday dinner and adjust your dialogue accordingly.
Good blog manners are synonymous with good table manners.
God Bless
“My dear BHG, we “let” misinformed people, men and women, make all kinds of decisions for themselves, because we live under a government of limited powers, not a nanny state. It is not ours, nor our government’s, place to “let” them choose or deny them a choice on the basis that they may be making a mistake.”
Fascinating since my daughter who is having her wisdom teeth extracted this week has been given a LIST of possible complications.
I remember being given a huge list of possible complications when I went into the hospital years ago to have 4 wisdom teeth extracted.
It turned out many of them I ended up with including broken nasal bones.
In abortion, there is NO disclosure of the risks to the woman.
No disclosure of the risks to the baby – oh, I mean DEATH.
Every woman should be told and indeed has the right to KNOW all the risks entailed in abortion.
Because in the end, if you are the 1% or the 12% who has that specific complication, it does matter.
It mattered to me that I was that 1% who had a hematoma in my cheek.
Mary Catherine, if you want women to be fully informed of the risks inherent in a procedure known as abortion, the same way you were with dental extraction, I’m right with you.
Of course we disagree on telling a woman as authoritative fact that the procedure results in “death” of a “child.” You have a free speech right to say that, but not to put words in the doctors mouth.
Give the woman some credit for a little sense. Any woman seeking an abortion knows that she is pregnant, knows that if she does not abort she will most likely have a baby (unless there is a natural miscarriage or accident), and knows that abortion will halt that process, meaning that baby will never be born. So you would not be providing information she doesn’t have, you would be giving her your sincere evaluation of the moral implications.
If we are being honest about all this we would clearly distinguish between
a) information on possible health risks to the woman
b) empirical data on the physical condition of the growth in the woman’s uterus
c) moral judgements as to what that growth is, i.e. a mass of tissue, or an independent human life.
Those are all relevant. They are distinct considerations. Each category has implications which impact on how another might be viewed. People who call themselves “pro-life” like to roll them all up into a song and dance to create an emotional response, while those who are “gung ho for abortion” (I was pleased that a pro-life comment at Front Porch Republic noted I’m not in that category) like to blur it all in a slightly different way.
Gerard, I don’t expect you to agree. I’ve been engaged in discussions on three different sites that are either committed to a pro-life position (yours and Erin’s), or where comments and posts are predominantly pro-life. Generally, people at all three have acknowledged that I am thoughtful and respectful. What I respect is that people who call themselves pro-life sincerely believe that from the moment a zygote forms, there is an independent human life, worthy of the full protection of the law, and that to remove that life from the womb is murder. That can’t be written off as the reactionary preoccupation of ignorant neanderthals, or whatever it is that those who consider themselves “pro-abortion” are saying these days.
I understand that there is no more difficult debate to resolve, than when one side of the debate says “this is murder” and the other side says “this is perfectly acceptable.” But I expect that people on your side of the debate will respect the fact that millions of your fellow citizens do not consider the procedure in question murder, and that unless one side is going to physically exterminate the other, we all have to live together somehow, preferably continuing to talk to each other.
I recently synthesized some of these discussions here:
http://aleksandreia.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/continuing-the-life-and-choice-dialog-on-a-familiar-anniversary/#comment-28499
Among others, I have been blessed with responses from John Thayer Jensen, always courteous, always pointed, always erudite and relevant.
There was also a comment which admirably sums up how I believe this whole question should be approached: “I think that when a sperm fertilizes an egg, something profound has happened and life has begun. And if that life connects to other lives in such a way that it is of value, the ending of that life is on some level a tragedy. I don’t think a fertilized egg or an embryo has self determination. I don’t think abortion is necessarily wrong. I also don’t think it is a small thing, to be approached casually.”
In this particular post, you have demanded, with more emotional stridency than usual, that because there is some plausible evidence that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, therefore all abortions in the nation should be halted, by any force necessary, immediately.
That’s what language like “If they decide to watch women die, instead of cleaning house,” or “When a medication that has had prior FDA approval is found to be doing harm, the regulatory agency pulls it from the market for obvious reasons,” communicates.
Now if what you MEANT to say was “We are outraged that full information on the risks of increased incidence of breast cancer is not being provided to women considering abortion,” and if that is ALL you really mean, we have nothing to argue about, as I’ve already said. But it is not all you mean.
I have a strongly libertarian outlook, and nothing gets me angry like someone demanding that the police power of the state be employed to force an immediate change in how a person responds to what I believe should be a personal choice. When you feel that NARAL is attempting to suppress your freedom of speech, I’m on your side. They do not have a monopoly on free speech. When you offer services to pregnant women to encourage them to face whatever difficulty is in front of them, I consider that the highest and most responsible expression of the pro-life movement, and perfectly legitimate.
When a man explains that his wife contracted rubella while pregnant, and neither had any question that they would carry their pregnancy to term, I respect their right to make that choice, and the manner in which they have, in fact, lived up to all the responsibilities which came with it. (I personally consider their choice to be an act of unparalleled cruelty, but given the wide difference of thought on that, I consider it best that each set of parents make the choice they think best, and accept the consequences).
But when I see the totalitarian fist behind the velvet glove, you bet I get my back up over it. That’s why I get a little harsher about the presumed authority of the Roman bureaucracy. What I see in Roman doctrine is an admirable thread of humanism, inextricably bound to an atrocious totalitarian ideology. The former is unambiguously Christian, the latter undeniably Roman, with unbroken continuity back to pagan times. I won’t get into theology, since many of the intractable theological debates which have marred Christian history were grafted on by Greek philosophers.
Siarlys,
Well of course the Roman Catholic Church goes back to pagan times. Whom do you think they converted?
Mary Catherine: I’m confused. Are you saying that pregnant women shouldn’t be informed about the scientific studies that show a 40% increase in cancer due to elective abortions? It sounds reasonable to me.
Cool resource for those who want to understand the history behind the abortion “rights” movement: http://ignatiusinsight.com/features2009/dennehy_abortion1_may09.asp
We pro-lifers have consistently said that science has backed us: human life begins at conception. It’s pro-aborts who’ve deliberately tried to claim it is a moral, theological, or philosophical one.
Janet, I’m saying the Roman church’s hierarchy is pagan in nature and origin. The lines of Authority perpetuated within the Roman church are of pagan nature, not of Christian nature. It was not established by Christ, but inherited with the purple, just as the Bishop of Rome acquired ascendancy by virtue of geographic location, not from God. Does this make the distinction clear? You will no doubt disagree, which is your right, but don’t take all the meaning out of my words to prop up your argument.
BHG, your reference to science is self-comforting rhetoric. We all take the same scientific data, and understand its meaning in different ways. Of course it is tactically useful propaganda for those with spiritual motives to cite science, and those with materialistic motives to cite spirituality, just as Creation Scientists like to put Ph.D’s on their letterhead and Darwinists like to put DD’s on their letterheads. That’s all a game. Don’t make so much of it.
As long as I’ve gone off on that tangent, let me note that the Roman Catholic church has developed a much more nuanced view of Creation and evolution than many Protestant sects, and Pope Leo XIII openly declared evidence for origin of the universe in a huge explosion of electro-magnetic energy entirely consistent with the Bible, which of course it is. The Roman church has many good points as well as not a few dubious angles.