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NRL News National Cancer Institute and Academia Cover Up ABC Link Writing in the current issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr Angela Lanfranchi’s “Federal Government and Academic Texts as Barriers to Informed Consent” illuminates the many ways the public has been kept in the dark about evidence that documents a link between induced abortion and breast cancer (the ABC link). It is very useful reading. No organization has done more to bury the evidence than the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health. The bottom line is found on the NCI web page: “having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.” Dr. Lanfranchi’s comprehensive review concludes that there is “blatantly incorrect information given to patients by the NCI web site.” For example, exposure to estrogen is associated with increased likelihood of breast cancer. The NCI web site falsely says that “estrogen levels are lower during pregnancy.” In fact, estrogen levels rise 2000% by the end of the first trimester and continue to rise during pregnancy. The NCI has mangled the biology of breast maturation. Pregnancy does lower breast cancer risk, but only if the pregnancy goes beyond 32 weeks. In fact, prior to 32 weeks, the risk is higher because more cancer-vulnerable Type 1 and 2 lobules have been created. In a normal pregnancy, there is a self-correcting mechanism in place. After 32 weeks, 85% of these lobules will have matured into cancer-resistant Type 4 lobules which do greatly reduce the mother’s breast cancer risk. Lanfranchi also discusses a 2003 NCI Workshop on “Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer Risk.” The NCI workshop brought together 100 scientists who, save one, concluded that abortion and breast cancer were not linked and that the subject should be not be studied further. At the same time it was acknowledged the increase in breast cancer risk found with premature birth before 32 weeks was an “epidemiologic gap”—and in need of further study! The bias shown by the NCI workshop participants was illustrated by Leslie Bernstein, an epidemiologist and workshop leader. She told a reporter after the workshop: “The biggest bang for the buck is the first birth, and the younger you are the better off you are.” (Dr. Bernstein meant by this that the earlier a woman delivers her first baby, the greater the protection against breast cancer.) No sooner had Dr. Bernstein said this than she added, “I don’t want the issue relating induced abortion to breast cancer risk to be a part of the mix of the discussion of induced abortion, its legality, its continued availability.” That same bias is seen in academic breast cancer texts. For instance, in the 2000 edition of Diseases of the Breast, early full-term pregnancy is not listed in its table of breast cancer preventive measures. The accompanying text explains why it was not listed in the table: “... unplanned early pregnancy and an average of more than two completed pregnancies per woman have un-desirable ecologic and social consequences.” In other words, the truth about pregnancy and breast cancer risk is either avoided or turned on its head. On the one hand, aborting a pregnancy increases the likelihood of breast cancer because it short-circuits the natural maturation process by which cancer-vulnerable breast lobules (which increase massively during pregnancy) are replaced by cancer-resistant breast lobules. On the other hand, the properties of a completed pregnancy which lower breast cancer risk are ignored or left unexplained. For the complete text to this brilliant and eye-opening expose, go to the web site of the Breast Cancer Institute at www.bcpinstitute.org under “Resources, Published Papers.” |