Abortion and Breast Cancer

In testimony to the UK Parliament Select Committee on Science and Technology, which can be viewed here, Dr. Joel Brind, Professor of Human Biology and Endocrinology, Baruch College of the City University of New York, provided information on the following points:

• Higher risk of future breast cancer in women with abortion versus pregnancy and delivery has been consistently reported in medical literature since 1970 multinational study (including the UK) by the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Oxford University epidemiologists have led the effort to give public false assurance of safety since 1982, with 3 studies on UK women, and a recent (2004) “reanalysis” by Valerie Beral et al., of worldwide data, which reported the false conclusion of no risk increase with abortion.
• The Oxford “reanalysis” was biased in selecting studies for review, including at least 4 large, scientifically invalid studies, and excluding or omitting 15 valid studies for non-scientific reasons.
• The Oxford “reanalysis” used the clinically impossible standard “of never having had that pregnancy” to which women who chose abortion are compared .
• The majority of world-wide published evidence shows abortion raises breast cancer risk beyond “never having had that pregnancy”, as we reported in our 1996 meta-analysis, published by the British Medical Association.
• Established facts of breast physiology support independent effect of abortion in raising breast cancer risk.
• The flawed methodology used for abortion, in Oxford “reanalysis” and in general, is compared with correct methodology used to identify HRT as a significant risk factor, even by the same Oxford researchers (Beral et al.) in their 2003 “Million Women Study”.
• The same inappropriate standard of comparison used for abortion would also make HRT appear not to increase risk, as demonstrated by Million Women Study results.
• Recent US experience with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) shows honest reportage of risks results in women avoiding risk, by stopping HRT use.
• Recent US drop in breast cancer shows striking results of women stopping HRT use, thus avoiding risk.
• RCOG Clinical Guideline No. 7 acknowledges lower breast cancer risk with pregnancy and delivery, yet it contradicts its own evidence with the claim of no risk increase, and violates its own Clinical Governance Advice No. 6 re: obtaining informed consent.
• RCOG Clinical Guideline No. 7 misrepresents evidence against their recommendation as “Evidence supporting recommendation”.
• Open disclosure of abortion’s effect in raising breast cancer risk will reduce future medical costs and demographic decline in the UK.