Last summer, I mentioned that groups receiving federal funding were providing misleading information about abortion, including the unsupported statement that having an abortion increases the risk of development of breast cancer. As I noted, this "link" has been refuted by a number of analyses, including a 2004 Lancet paper and a 2003 National Cancer Institute report. As if those weren't enough, a new study comes to the same conclusion: yep, no link. More after the jump.
The new study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at data from 105,716 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study, which was established in 1976 to study a wide range of health issues affecting women.The women, ages 29 to 46 at the start of the study, were followed for 10 years. Every two years, they were asked about abortions, miscarriages and new breast cancer diagnoses. The researchers looked at medical records to confirm the diagnoses.
Unlike some of the early studies which suggested a link between abortion and breast cancer, many subsequent ones have relied not on the recollection and self-reporting of abortion in cases and controls (which can introduce bias), but rather examine medical records (and in this case, other survey data) that was collected prior to diagnosis with breast cancer.
Like prior studies, the authors found that having a completed pregnancy, and breast-feeding, were protective when it came to the subsequent development of breast cancer. The authors found no association between either spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) nor abortion and breast cancer. However, there will always be those who stick to their opinions despite the evidence, rather than because of it. For the abortion-breast cancer ("ABC") connection, this dissenter is Dr. Joel Brind of Baruch College. Dr. Brind was the lone participant in the 2003 NCI conference who disagreed with the conclusions of the summary report, and argues that the current study is "severely flawed" by not allowing sufficient follow-up time in women who experienced fairly recent abortions:
[Brind] said the new study is flawed because it included very recent abortions -- too recent for them to contribute to the development of cancer. Including those abortions in the analysis may have diluted the cancer rates, he said.
And this is a legitimate criticism; the authors could have limited the study to abortions obtained at least a decade ago or more. However, Karin Michels, the lead author, notes that "...more than 90 percent of the abortions in the study occurred before 1993." Therefore, even eliminating those later abortions would be unlikely to have significantly altered the conclusions.
And for those who follow the evolution/creation fight, the thimerosal/autism brigade, or the HIV "dissidents," this line of argumentation may sound familiar:
The U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) funded the new study, Michels et al. 2007. Ten years ago, NCI expert Patricia Hartge concluded, "In short, a woman need not worry about breast cancer when facing the difficult decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy."
"So why has the NCI continued to spend millions of dollars to fund studies on the abortion-cancer link?" asked Malec. "Clearly, its scientists must either suspect a link or know that it exists."
Ah, yes...we continue to research something, therefore we must "know" that we're already wrong about our prior conclusions. Scientists write about the claims made by intelligent design creationists; therefore, the creationists are correct! The government removed thimerosal from vaccines; therefore, they must know that it really caused autism! Scientists refine their understanding of HIV/AIDS as new research comes to light; therefore, they're all wrong about everything previously!
The ABC folks, however, put the icing on the cake by adding this piece of strained logic:
"Even the NCI agrees that increased childbearing, starting at an early age, protects women from breast cancer," said Malec. "Legislators have a moral obligation to require abortion providers to inform expectant mothers that if they have an abortion, their breast cancer risk will be higher than it would be if they have a baby. That's settled science."
And indeed, as noted right in the paper: "A full-term pregnancy before the age of 35 years reduces long-term risk of breast cancer." This isn't anything that's hidden. However, they're being disingenuous when they say that the breast cancer risk of these women would be "higher than it would be if they have a baby." Indeed, sure, if these women go on to never give birth to children, they will lack the *protective* effect that childbirth provides. However, that's like telling me that I'm increasing my risk of breast cancer when I'm out with friends and I abstain from wine while the others around me have a glass of merlot. If the women follow their aborted pregnancy with one or more completed pregnancy before the age of 35, however, they will experience the same protective effect as others in their cohort who never obtained an abortion. It's not the abortion itself that is a risk factor that predisposes to breast cancer; it's the completion of a pregnancy that helps to *protect* against it.
Now, one may argue that these are two sides of the same coin, but imagine this scenario (exaggerated for emphasis): a woman has 10 pregnancies between the age of 16 and 26. She ends them all by obtaining an abortion. Then she goes on to have 5 children between the ages of 27 and 35. Because she followed the abortions she obtained with completed pregnancies, she'll still have a lower risk of breast cancer than a woman who never had an abortion but also never had any children. It's not the abortion that makes the difference; it's the childbearing. Of course, I don't expect the ABC group to start advocating for these types of disclaimers to be discussed during abortion counseling anytime soon.
Reference
Michels et al. 2007. Induced and Spontaneous Abortion and Incidence of Breast Cancer Among Young Women. Arch Intern Med. 168:814-20.
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I think they should go ahead and re-analyse the data, deleting those having an abortion over the last 10 years, to see what they get.
Ugh!! Logic like that is painful to read.
Wouldn't they then have the same "moral obligation" to so inform anyone buying birth control pills (or any other form of birth control), as well as those women who choose not to have children? Seems a tad obtrusive to me.
And, of course, we *need* more children. We only have six billion people on Earth.
We could stand to have alot fewer. One estimate is that the Earth can renewably sustain about a billion people. Clearly, we're going to have to fix our economics so that it doesn't depend on constant growth.
Don't get me wrong. I really like kids. I'm raising one, adopted. But adoption didn't have anything to do with wanting, or not wanting, to produce one.
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Happy Earth Day dear (fill in your name here).
Happy Earth Day to you.
I'm very skeptical of the supposed link between abortion and breast cancer. What would be the mechanism of injury, even if there was some weak form of association?
Speaking of cancer, though, there is an interesting piece in Scientific American on the cause of cancer: chromosomal imbalance. The author is Dr. Peter Duesberg, the same fellow who questions the HIV-AIDS link.
Yes, someone on SB will be posting about the chromosome paper in a few days or so. I'll link it when it's up.
Absolutely. Perhaps they could campaign for a new disclaimer on condoms: "using this product raises a woman's risk of breast cancer." I'd love to see that one fly....
Yes, someone on SB will be posting about the chromosome paper in a few days or so. I'll link it when it's up.
Great, looking forward to it.
In the meantime, if you've read it, What's your take? Is he spinning a fairy tale or is it solid science?
Tara, that's funny you mention condoms. Don't you know condoms are the biggest threat of our time??!! (I am joking;)
Seriously, if you look at AIDS Truth there's a new essay on Rebecca Culshaw. The intro talks about a talk show she was on last year. You won't believe this until you actually listen to it. This guy Michael Elner is interviewing her and says condoms can kill or disable you, so since HIV is a myth condoms are more dangerous than STDs. The whole time Rebecca is agreeing, Uh-huh, yeah, mmm-Hmm. My jaw was on the floor.
Ben Gorman,
Duesberg is doing correlation again. He always does. Yeah, so you find chromosomal imbalance in cancer cells. To Duesberg, that's proof it causes cancer. To other scientists who know mutations come before the cancer, it's an effect.
Duesberg is an oddball who picks his conclusions and then looks for proof. I think he picks his conclusions by what will upset other scientists the most, espcially people he knew well in the past and are more successful and famous than him now. He looks for his proof by ignoring anything contradictory. If there's not much evidence, he blames a government conspiracy. The whole time he's saying other scientists do crappy work.
If Duesberg's right about cancer and I doubt he is, a more objective scientist will have to prove it.
clearly abstaining from sex causes breast cancer. any teenage daughter who is considering staying home from a night of drunken carousing with her friends, or planning to arrange a taxi home instead of walking through the bad part of town late at night, should receive some earnest counselling