Indian Study: Abortion increases breast cancer six-fold
Babette Francis
lIn July 2013 the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer reported on a study published in the Indian Journal of Community Medicine (May, 2013) whose authors found a 6.38- fold greater risk of breast cancer among women with histories of induced abortion. [1] The study, led by Ramchandra Kamath, MD (Department of Public Health, Manipal University), found induced abortion was the most important risk factor.
“With only 94 cases and 94 controls, the study was way too small for a significant risk of the order of 1.5-fold to even show up,” explained Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York, a recognized expert in research into the links between abortion/ contraception and breast cancer, “yet induced abortion did show up as the strongest risk factor (and right on the border of statistical significance) because the risk increase was so high at 6.38-fold.”
Study leader Ramchandra Kamath of the Department of Public Health, Manipal University, observed that India has the “largest estimated number of breast cancer deaths worldwide,” and that breast cancer ranks second only to cervical cancer as the most common diagnosed malignancy among Indian women.
The authors found a non-statistically significant 1.76-fold risk increase among women with first births after age 30. “Medical texts acknowledge that delayed first full term pregnancy is a risk factor for breast cancer,” said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. “It’s indisputable that abortion contributes to delayed first full term pregnancies, and in some cases, women remain childless forever, which is also an accepted risk factor.”
Brind said he found it “troubling that the abortion-breast cancer link is now showing up big time in the world’s most populous countries where breast cancer used to be rare. That means millions upon millions of women will die from this deadly after-effect of abortion. Consider that between India and China, we're talking about over a billion women. If only 1% of them get breast cancer due to abortion, that's still 10 million women, of whom at least 2 or 3 million will die from it!”
“Their deaths,” said Karen Malec, “can be laid at the doorstep of the U.S.National Cancer Institute whose leaders have covered up the abortion-breast cancer link for twenty years since the study, Daling et al. 1994, became available.” [2] See also letter from Karen Malec, Professor Brind and Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, MD, to President Obama, the then Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Leader, the Hon. John Boehner, and Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell (http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/download/ ObamaLetter.pdf)
The Indian researchers also found that women who had more than two children had significantly lower breast cancer rates. Of the breast cancer cases in the study, 65 of the women had two or fewer children, while 27 of the women had more than two children.
According to the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, scientists have found that when a woman becomes pregnant she acquires protective cells from her child - a process called fetal cell microchimerism - that remain with her for decades, perhaps till the end of her life, and that help the mother's immune system fight off infections and disease.
Researchers have also discovered that a baby’s fetal cells show up more often in a mother’s healthy breast tissue and less often in a woman who has breast cancer (43 versus 14 percent). They hypothesize that the baby’s fetal cells have a beneficent purpose: to protect, defend, and repair her for the rest of her life, especially when she becomes seriously ill.
“There’s a lot of evidence now starting to come out that these cells may actually be repairing tissue,” said professor Carol Artlett, a researcher at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University.
Ramchandra Kamath and his team of researchers at Manipal University concluded that their findings concurred with a 2006 Indian study, led by Manjusha Rai, that found a “significant association between abortion and breast cancer.” [3]
The single most avoidable risk factor for breast cancer is induced abortion. Other recent studies supporting the abortion breast cancer link are from China, Armenia, Turkey and the USA. See www.bcpinstitute.org
References:
1. Kamath R, Mahajan KS, Ashok L, Sanai TS. A study on
risk factors of breast cancer among patients attending the
tertiary care hospital, in Udupi district. Indian J Community
Med, 2013;38(2)95-99. Available at: http://
www.ijcm.org.in/text.asp?2013/38/2/95/112440.
2. Daling JR, Malone DE, Voigt LF, White E, Weiss NS.
Risk of breast cancer among young women: relationship to
induced abortion. J Natl Cancer Inst 1994;86:1584-1592.
Available at: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/86/21/
1584.
White E, Malone KE, Weiss NS, Daling JR. Breast cancer
among young US women in relation to oral contraceptive
use. J Natl Cancer Inst 1994;86:505-514. Available at:
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/86/7/505.abstract.
3. Rai M, Pandey A, Singh M, Rai A & Shukia HS. “Assessment
of epidemiological factors associated with breast
cancer.” Indian J. Prev. Soc. Med. 2008;39:71-77. Available
at: http://medind.nic.in/ibl/t08/i1/iblt08i1p71.pdf.
Babette Francis is the Australian representative of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, 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.