BOSTON-United Press International reported in late January that noted researcher Dr. Joel Brind of New York has blasted a study of 1.5 million women in Denmark which found no link between abortion and later development of breast cancer.
Dr. Brind of Baruch University, who won research found a 30 per cent increase risk of breast cancer among women who had abortion, described the Danish study scientifically “terrible.”
Brind told United Press International that the-New England Journal of Medicine report was faulty because the Danish researchers included large numbers of young women more likely to have abortions but less likely to have breast cancer and other women more likely to have breast cancer and for whom no records of abortions were available.
That was likely to skew the figures, Brind says. Danish researchers compared data on abortion and 15breast cancer for all women born in the country from 1935 to 1978. Of the 1.5 million women, there were 370715 induced abortions committed and 10,246 women with breast cancer.
The Danish Epidemiology Science Center researchers could find no link between abortions and breast cancer.
Patricia Hartge of the National Cancer Institute, whose editorial accompanies the article in the journal supporting the Danish research, says, “The use of data on abortion obtained from population registries rather than from interviews and the large size of the study strengthens the credibility of the findings.”
Other pro-life criticisms of the Dutch study included a misleading database, the omission or de-emphasis on significant data, and the misrepresentation of previous studies.
