Abortion-Cancer Research Presented at National Institute for Demographic Studies

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer reported that British researcher Patrick Carroll presented his research on abortion as the "best predictor of British breast cancer trends" at a conference in Paris sponsored by the National Institute for Demographic Studies on September 7, 2005. Carroll is director of the London-based Pensions and Population Research Institute.  The conference was attended by statisticians and epidemiologists.

Carroll provided forecasts of the increased incidence of breast cancers to be expected in Great Britain in the next 25 years.   He reported three trends:

1. British upper class women are more likely to develop breast cancer and to die of the disease than are lower class women. Upper class women are more likely to delay the birth of a first child and to abort before the birth of a first child. These are highly carcinogenic abortions.

The disparity between upper and lower class women (called a "reverse gradient") has widened in recent years and is greater in England than in Scotland, a situation Carroll attributes to a higher abortion rate and later age at first birth in England. In Figure A, Carroll expects a widening of the disparity between classes in England and Wales for the next four years:

2. Geographical variations in breast cancer rates across the British Isles can be explained by the abortion rate, but not the birth rate, although childbearing reduces breast cancer risk. Ireland, which prohibits abortion, has the lowest breast cancer rate in the British Isles.  London and the Southeast, where abortion is most prevalent, have the highest breast cancer rates, as shown in Figure B:

3. Breast cancer rates between 1971 and 2002 increased approximately 70%.  Carroll studied breast cancer rates for women ages 50-54 born in the years 1926-1946 and found that breast cancer rates were highly correlated with abortion rates and less highly correlated with fertility and other factors.

"Despite the best efforts of the U.S. National Cancer Institute to cover up evidence of a link during the last half-century," declared Karen Malec, president of the coalition, "women will ultimately learn the truth."

Carroll's press release can be found here: 

Carroll's research is free of any possibility of recall bias, an unproven, hypothetical problem used by opponents of the abortion-breast cancer link to sweep under the rug earlier research showing a link.

Carroll can be reached at: telephone number 001 44 (0) 20 7354 5667 @ PAPRI, 35 Canonbury Road, London N1 2DG, UK.

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is 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.