Government Intervention & True Science

Science is not as objective as those "Blinded by Scientism" may think or those who are "Recovering Sight After Scientism" are beginning to think. What it can understand is limited—either beneficially or not—by its premises and underlying philosophy (Parvus error in principio magnus est in fine.). Government intervention can adversely affect science, too. This is an example of how false premises, philosophies, and government intervention can hurt true science:

In February 2003, Dr. Louise Brinton, the National Cancer Institute's chief of the Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, served as chairperson at an NCI workshop in Bethesda, Md., to assess whether abortion was implicated as a breast cancer risk.

In the opinion of "over 100 of the world's leading experts," said the subsequent NCI report, including Dr. Brinton, the answer was no.

One expert disallowed from participating was Dr. Joel Brind, a biology and endocrinology professor who had co-authored a meta-analysis demonstrating an abortion/breast cancer (ABC) link.

Brind protested that the outcome was predetermined by "experts" handpicked by Dr. Brinton who either were not really experts, were dependent on the NCI or other government agencies for grants, or were pro-abortion extremists, such as two who had previously provided paid "expert" court testimony on behalf of abortionists.

Studies concluding there was not an ABC link were included in the workshop analysis; studies concluding there was were not.

At the time, 29 out of 38 studies conducted worldwide over 40 years showed an increased ABC risk, but the NCI workshop nevertheless concluded it was "well established" that "induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk."

Brind went on to write a minority report NCI alludes to on its website without publishing or listing its author and did not even mention in its workshop summary report.

Life went on, except for post-abortive women inflicted with breast cancer anyway.

But six years later something happened. Dr. Brinton either flipped her lid, flipped ideologies, restudied the evidence and decided to recant, or couldn't sleep at night – and she began righting her wrong.

In April 2009, Brinton co-authored a research paper published in the prestigious journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, which concluded that the risk of a particularly deadly form of breast cancer that attacks women under 40 raises 40 percent if a woman has had an abortion.

The paper's subtitle listed Brinton's position at NCI.

Curiously, the paper included as corroboration two studies Brinton's 2003 NCI "experts" had rejected. More curiously, it turns out Brinton co-authored one of those two studies.

For nine months, that little bombshell of a disaster for pro-abortion ideology was published without the NCI acknowledging it or changing its stance.

Then this month, Brind spotted and wrote about Brinton's concession and NCI's hypocrisy.

Now that the mainstream media's interest has been slightly piqued, NCI and Brinton are on the hot seat.

The Globe and Mail, Ontario's liberal news source, wrote Jan. 8:

An e-mail to Dr. Brinton on Friday was returned by an Institute spokesman named Michael Miller who said: "NCI has no comment on this study. Our statement and other information on this issue can be found at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/ere." That link turns up a 2003 document that says a workshop of more than 100 leading experts concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.

Requests for an explanation of the apparent discrepancy between that position and the information contained in the study released last spring went unanswered by NCI. …

[T]rying to prevent abortions by scaring women with breast cancer would truly be wrong. But so too would be suppressing the risks of abortion or any medical procedure.

A blogger at About.com, owned by the New York Times Company, wrote Jan. 8:

… Brinton admits that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40 percent. Brinton spearheaded the 2003 NCI workshop about the abortion-breast cancer link. … That workshop made every effort to assure women that having induced abortions was not linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, and that research did not support an ABC link. Now NCI, usually a trusted institution, is telling us that there is a 40 percent risk increase for women who have had abortions. …

I just wish agencies like the NCI would get their story straight, so we have as much information as possible, to reduce our risk of breast cancer.

Pro-aborts are understandably mum about Brinton's concession. Confirmation of the ABC link would eviscerate public acceptance and participation in abortion. Exposure of a long-term cover-up would eviscerate the savings accounts of abortionists and the abortion industry following lawsuit losses of a magnitude as great as or greater than the class-action lawsuits against tobacco companies.

Only pro-abortion blogger RabbleProChoice dared to consider the ramifications, writing after reading Brind's revelation she was "shaken" after considering "what it could mean for the pro-choice movement." Rabble went on to "spen[d] almost my entire day" looking for reassurance, finding it at the American Cancer Society's website – the 2003 NCI workshop results!

Rabble nonsensically concluded that Brinton's 2009 study was "[j]ust more bad science from the anti-choice media machine."

Rather, it has been, all along, the pro-abortion media machine spewing out bad science to prop abortion.

Finally, someone has thrown a long overdue monkey wrench into the denial machinery.

—Jill Stanek's "Top scientist finally admits abortion-breast cancer link"