Questions for Brian re: peer-review process
- From: jason@xxxxxxxxxx (Jason Johnson)
- Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:08:09 -0700
I could not think of very many examples of articles that are outside of
the mainstream but should be published in journals such as JAMA. However,
in most cases, such articles would never be published or pass the peer
review process since they are outside of the mainstream and/or are NOT
politically correct. I found several articles like the one below when I
typed "Abortion/Breast Cancer" into the google search engine.
It's my guess that any members of the peer review committee that approved
the following article or similar article would be fired ASAP. Do you
agree?
Source: World Net Daily (worldnetdaily.com)
WND Exclusive MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Abortion-breast cancer link covered up by scientists?
Researcher says 'pro-choice' bias has hidden deadly risks to women
Posted: May 16, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A pioneer researcher into the connection between abortion and breast
cancer says an overwhelming amount of evidence collected in nearly 50
years of studies demonstrating a conclusive link has been systematically
covered up by biased scientists, government agencies and the news media
using fraudulent data to deceive women about potentially life-and-death
decisions.
Joel Brind, a Ph.D. and professor of human biology and endocrinology at
Baruch College, City University of New York and president of the Breast
Cancer Prevention Institute, has authored a paper for the National
Catholic Bioethics Quarterly refuting several recent studies downplaying
the abortion-breast cancer link.
In particular, Brind cites a widely noticed paper published by Valerie
Beral and four other Oxford University scientists in The Lancet in 2004
and statements of the National Cancer Institute in 2003.
The Beral study finding was unequivocal: "Pregnancies that end as a
spontaneous or induced abortion do not increase a woman's risk of
developing breast cancer." The NCI has stated on its website since 2003
"having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's subsequent
risk of developing breast cancer."
"The trouble is, to accept this conclusion, one needs to dismiss almost
half a century's worth of data which do show a significant link between
abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer," writes Brind.
Brind says "denial of the ABC link has become the party line of all major
governmental agencies (including the World Health Organization),
mainstream medical associations (including the American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Royal College of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists) and the most prestigious medical journals (including the
New England Journal of Medicine)."
The first study done on the link was in 1957 in Japan, published in the
Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, and found breast cancer had a
three-fold higher frequency in women who had abortions. Again in 1979, the
World Health Organization commissioned a high-profile study based at
Harvard and published in the WHO Bulletin that reported a disturbing trend
"in the direction which suggested increased risk associated with abortion
contrary to the reduction in risk with full-term births."
"The fact that the WHO findings never entered the debate reveals a
disturbing and continuing disconnect between the so-called women's
health advocates pushing for legalized abortion and any genuine concern
for women's health," writes Brind.
Those studies were followed by the first based on American women in 1981
by Malcolm Pike and his colleagues at the University of Southern
California. The results showed women who had an abortion before they had
any children were at a 2.4-fold increased risk for breast cancer.
"One would think, especially given the overwhelmingly elective nature of
the induced abortion, that the precautionary principle would prevail, if
not in terms of legal regulation, then at least in terms of
recommendations by medical societies and public health agencies," writes
Brind. "That is to say, even one or two studies showing a significant
association between induced abortion and future breast cancer risk would
surely raise some red flags about the procedure's safety. Yet not only was
a statistical connection showing up in the vast majority of studies that
had examined the issue, but by the early 1980s, a clear picture of the
physiological events explaining that connection was beginning to emerge."
Brind points out that the connection went beyond statistics. In the 1970s,
the science explaining the connection was becoming understood through
laboratory research into reproductive endocrinology. In 1976, the British
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology published a study documenting the
difference between the enormous rise of estrogen and progesterone in the
first trimester of viable pregnancies and the stunted and short-lived rise
of these hormones during pregnancies destined to abort spontaneously
through miscarriage. These findings, he says, dovetail perfectly with the
patterns of differences in breast cancer risk following different
pregnancy outcomes.
Tests during the 1970s on research animals again demonstrated the link
between abortions and breast cancer risk, connecting it conclusively with
the estrogen and progesterone levels produced in early stages of
pregnancy.
"Knowledge of the actions of estrogen and progesterone in terms of their
effects upon breast growth completes the coherent picture of induced but
not spontaneous abortion and breast cancer risk," explains Brind.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Brind asserts that study after study in
Japan, Europe and the U.S. continued to report significant increased
breast cancer risk in women who had an induced abortion.
"By 1994, six epidemiological studies out of seven in the United States,
on women of both black and white ethnicity, had reported increased risk
with induced abortion," he writes.
Then in 1994, Janet Daling and colleagues of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center in Seattle published a study in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute showing a 50 percent increase in the risk of
breast cancer among women who had chosen abortion. It also showed an
increase of more than 100 percent for women who had an abortion prior to
the age of 18 or after age 30. The risk was compounded for those who had
family histories of breast cancer.
"But forces were already set in motion to make sure the news was
short-lived," explains Brind. "For one thing, the Daling study was
accompanied by a most unusual JNCI editorial. It was unusual because most
medical journal editorials, written by a scientist who has peer-reviewed
the study, are published by the journal in order to highlight the
importance of a major study on a subject of wide public interest. Such
editorials typically make it easier for reporters usually non-scientists
working on short deadlines to glean the major points of a study and
render it understandable to the general public. Instead, Dr. Lynn
Rosenberg, of Boston University School of Medicine, took the opportunity
to write an editorial which sandbagged the Daling study, concluding
among other things that "... the overall results as well as the
particulars are far from conclusive, and it is difficult to see how they
will be informative to the public." Rosenberg even speculated the study
may have been faulty because of "reporting bias" that generated false
positive results.
Brind accuses Rosenberg of misrepresenting the Daling study, "an act which
by itself satisfies most definitions of scientific misconduct."
Brind even suggests a possible motive: "Rosenberg has also shown herself
to take a stance that appears to go beyond 'pro-choice' (as Janet Daling
has described herself), and that is radically pro-abortion. In 1999, for
example, she served on behalf of a group of Florida abortion clinics as an
expert witness in their (ultimately successful) facial challenge of a new
parental notification law in Florida for minors seeking an abortion. Such
minimal restrictions on abortions are supported by the vast majority of
even 'pro-choice' citizens, but not by the likes of Rosenberg."
Brind points out that when Rosenberg served as editor of the American
Journal of Epidemiology in 1988, a study on breast cancer in South
American women was published. Only seven years later was it revealed in
the British Journal of Cancer that the study found abortion was the
biggest risk factor in that study a point not revealed under Rosenberg's
watch.
Government agencies such as the NCI, some volunteer organizations such as
the American Cancer Society and major medical journals all seem
determined, Brind asserts, to downplay and conceal the breast cancer links
with abortion.
"The only effective counterweight to such unified enforcement of the party
line (in this case, 'safe abortion') is an independent media," he says.
In 1996, Brind, along with three colleagues, published a comprehensive
review and meta-analysis of the ABC link in the British Medical
Association's epidemiology journal, the Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health. It reported data compiled from 23 previous studies. It
found there was a 30 percent increase in risk of breast cancer among women
who had an induced abortion with no significant link to miscarriages.
Three months later, a new paper widely hailed as the definitive disproof
of the ABC link appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was
funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and focused exclusively on women
in Denmark. Nevertheless, an editorial in the journal by a senior NCI
scientist concluded: "In short, a woman need not worry about the risk of
breast cancer when facing the difficult decision of whether to terminate a
pregnancy."
"Just how, one may reasonably ask, could one single study's result nullify
almost half a century's data from dozens of studies?" writes Brind.
But he goes further, pointing out what appears to be a serious flaw in the
methodology the misclassification of some 60,000 women in the study who
had abortions but were categorized as not having the procedure.
Yet, Brind contends the raw data of the study still shows a 44 percent
increase in breast cancer risk with induced abortion an increase that
did not appear in print in the study "and which was made to disappear with
statistical adjustment."
"Despite the worst efforts of scientists, doctors, politicians,
journalists and judges to quash public knowledge of the ABC link, the fact
that published evidence of it abounds would make it a daunting task to
convince a jury of its nonexistence, given a well-presented case," writes
Brind.
He says two recent court cases have found in favor of plaintiffs who did
not receive warnings about breast cancer risk before their abortions.
"It is indeed unfortunate that even assuming the truth will eventually
win out it may not occur until the issue is forced into the courtroom,"
he concludes. "We have estimated that upwards of 10,000 cases of breast
cancer each year presently, and up to 25,000 per year in 20 or 30 years
hence, are or will be attributable to induced abortion. How many thousands
of women will be subjected to the pain and suffering of this horrible
life-threatening disease, only because doctors, the public health
agencies, the media and even voluntary anti-cancer organizations are under
the thumb of the 'safe abortion' lobby?"
Brind says there is new even stronger evidence to link abortion to
premature births in subsequent pregnancies, "which in turn raises the risk
of breast cancer and cerebral palsy in the prematurely born children."
"Many adjectives may be used to properly describe induced abortion, but
'safe' is assuredly not one of them," he concludes. "The day will surely
come when this is common knowledge, and for every day sooner that this
happens, thousands of lives may be saved."
Research finds there are other negative effects of abortion on mothers who
undergo the procedure.
According to a report yesterday in the London Telegraph, a French study of
2,837 births the first to investigate the link between terminations and
extremely premature births found that mothers who had previously had an
abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a baby at less than
28 weeks' gestation. Many babies born this early die soon after birth, and
a large number who survive suffer serious disability, the report state.
"Clearly there is a link. The results suggest that induced abortion can
damage the cervix in some way that makes a premature birth more likely in
subsequent pregnancies," the paper quotes Dr Caroline Moreau, the lead
researcher, as saying.
Related stories:
Judgment awarded in abortion-breast cancer case
Study: Tell women about abortion-breast cancer link
Can doctors be sued over abortion?
Abortion-cancer link goes on trial
Parties in abortion-breast cancer lawsuit settle
Abortion-breast cancer link still ignored
More evidence linking abortion, breast cancer
Abortion-cancer link goes to court
Redbook magazine bending the truth?
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