Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
Press Release
Contact: Karen Malec, 847-421-4000
Date: June 11, 2008
CALIFORNIA STUDY DENYING ABORTION-CANCER LINK IS FRAUDULENT, SAYS SCIENTIST
The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer notes the publication of the study, DeLellis Henderson et al. 2008, in the journal Contraception, which purports to examine the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link. [1]
"This fraudulent study provides further strong evidence of the continuing, willful misrepresentation by prominent scientists of the well-established link between abortion and breast cancer," said Joel Brind, Ph.D., president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute.
The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is providing a commentary discussing the study's serious flaws which caused an underestimation of the risk including:
1) Nearly one in five women with breast cancer in the study were counted as not having breast cancer;
2) Researchers pretended to have evidence of the lack of a loss of the protective effect of a full term pregnancy among aborted women, but, by using the wrong comparison group (i.e., comparing childless women with abortion to those who had never been pregnant), they did not show any evidence of such an effect;
3) They included an outright lie about the study, Howe et al. 1989; and
4) They omitted raw data showing how many controls had induced abortions, but not cancer.
Dr. Leslie Bernstein, a senior author in the study, told CancerPage.com in 2003 why she has a deep-seated dislike for the ABC link. She 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." [2]
"DeLellis Henderson and her colleagues need to either learn how to do a proper study or get a conscience and stop playing politics with women's lives," asserted Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. "Protecting Big Abortion from a tsunami of medical malpractice lawsuits isn't a priority."
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. DeLellis Henderson K, Sullivan-Halley J, Reynolds P, Horn-Ross P, Clarke C, et al. Incomplete pregnancy is not associated with breast cancer risk: the California Teachers Study. Contraception 2008;77:391-396.
2. 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 June 9, 2008.
