Wash. Post Inexplicably Gives Credence To Discredited Abortion-Breast Cancer Link

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201202010010

February 01, 2012 5:38 pm ET by Karen Famighetti

A post appeared on The Washington Post's health blog The Checkup today titled "Should Komen have been funding Planned Parenthood in the first place?" The post discusses the decision of the breast-cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure to no longer partner with Planned Parenthood affiliates to provide breast exams.

The post, written by health columnist Jennifer LaRue Huget, asks whether Komen should have been funding Planned Parenthood because an organization called The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer claims that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. This organization is run by Karen Malec, who apparently has no medical background and presents herself primarily as a journalist, according to her biography.

It's unclear why Huget is treating the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer seriously. Huget admits that research on the link between abortion and breast cancer risk is "spotty" but nonetheless links to a study from November 2011 that suggests that there may be an increase in breast cancer risk among women who have had an abortion.

Malec promoted this study shortly after it was published last year, and The Daily Caller wrote an article advancing her claims. At the time, Media Matters spoke about the study with the former chief of the Abortion Surveillance Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who called the study's methodology "one of the worst" he's seen and said it was "grossly inadequate":

[sinkingfeeling]

1. So, the writer simply chooses to ignore the NIC's reports on the issue. They say

there is no increase in breast cancer after abortion.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/abortion-miscarriage


In February 2003, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) convened a workshop of over 100 of the world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk. Workshop participants reviewed existing population-based, clinical, and animal studies on the relationship between pregnancy and breast cancer risk, including studies of induced and spontaneous abortions. They concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer. A summary of their findings can be found in the Summary Report: Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer Workshop.

[NNN0LHI]

2. This is distressing

My list of credible news sources is getting smaller and smaller.

Don

[RC]

3. Virginal Nuns have the exact same risk of breast cancer as a woman who has had an abortion

Because pregnancy, birth and breast feeding lowers the risk of breast cancer.