Hey Stezza, you publish lies, ie. "The fact that Dr. Brind has ...selectively ignored data that disagrees with him" and say I have no integrity? Shame on you, for taking this sometimes rancorous but generally civil discussion down a notch!

And while we're on the subject of "selectively ignoring data" how about your conveniently ignoring all the recent data from South Asia? Almost all the ORs reported were significant, one >20. That's because breast cancer is traditionally rare there, the typical female getting married and having kids as a teenager, not smoking, not drinking. So a risk factor like abortion really stands out. (If you ever took an interest in actually reading any of these papers, you'd see that many authors matter-of-factly refer to abortion as an established risk factor. I tested the hypothesis that it was a risk factor based on the fact that I had seen enough published data to suggest so, and it turned out to be right (whatever you or I or anyone else thinks, facts are facts.)

If you actually knew anything about epidemiology, you'd know that for a disease with a lifetime incidence in the neighborhood of 10%, you could never obtain an OR of 20 or 40, because an OR of 10 would essentially mean that every woman gets the disease!

Finally, I would like to point out abortion's being a risk factor does not at all mean that all women who have abortions will get breast cancer, or that all--or even most--women who get breast cancer have had an abortion. But I often get accused of suggesting such things. All I am doing is pointing out a hazard of a procedure that is a matter of choice. Well, if its a matter of choice, everyone facing this choice is entitled to know the possible consequences of that choice, right? But somehow, I have never seen--in all the advertising with which we have been bombarded over the years about cigarette smoking causing lung cancer, the indisputable fact that 85% of long-term cigarette smokers DO NOT get lung cancer. Selective reporting, anyone?

Joel Brind, you keep on about these studies from South Asia; however, a quick search of pubmed discovered 2 small studies, one from 2010 and one from 2013. Both were case-control studies and therefore subject to recall bias. One of 100 cases http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877782110000317 showed a statistically significant increased risk, the other of 94 cases http://www.ijcm.org.in/article.asp?issn=0970-0218;year=2013;volume=38;issue=2;spage=95;epage=99;aulast=Kamath did not.

However, what you have signally failed to do is to show how these small case-control studies invalidate large prospective studies. For example, this large study of 25,576 women from Denmark http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aogs.12107/abstract;jsessionid=E38357B47670D22A371BBD192A5CB29C.f01t03 that found no significant link.

It seems to me that you are just looking at what you want to see. Focussing on small case control studies and ignoring large prospective studies demonstrates a clear bias.

Perhaps because the article is called “Abortion breast cancer link explodes in Asia” and Denmark is not in Asia?

Prof Joel Brind,

Just for clarity and comparison (since you want to make one), what proportion of abortion patients "DO NOT" get breast cancer?

My suspicion is that the proportion of abortion patients that DO NOT get breast cancer differs from the control at the third significant figure. Unlike smokers.

I'm not sure what justification you find in making any comparison whatsoever with smoking. If (as many smokers say) 85% of smokers "DO NOT" get lung cancer (ignoring all other smoking-related cancers, airway and vascular diseases) and this profound risk at least an order of magnitude greater than applies to breast cancer in abortion patients, all it seems to do is undermine your use of the term "explosion" in your original title. Perhaps "goes pop!" would be more apt?

Insofar as abortion-related cancer could be used as a research tool, identifying specific mechanisms of cancer-induction (say the selective accumulation of oxidised steroids in cellular compartments) and improving our understanding of cancer, this is interesting, but I don't get the impression that this is your main thrust. It may be in your grant applications, and it is the bland position you revert to when challenged persistently, but in this opinion forum it *seems* that you are simply joining a bandwagon of abortion-bashers pushing this in the past week.

Whilst the risk that you are so eager to comprehensively warn people of might exist, greater risks reside in the fine print at the bottom of the box for a great many medical procedures and treatments and it in this fine print I suspect your warning should be. Disproportionate promotion of risks can alter priorities poorly.

If an abortion patient smokes I would suggest that this is their single biggest risk, and their doctors advice should focus there. Your concerns and many others equally real, might not be worthy of precious clinical minutes.

See you in the fine print.

Rusty

"Shame on you, for taking this sometimes rancorous but generally civil discussion down a notch!"

No Dr. Brind, you bring this discussion 'down a notch' by insinuating reputable medical and scientific organizations disagree with you because they are racist:

Brind- "Do they think all these brown and yellow people reporting such strong evidence of the ABC link in Asia must be incompetent in epidemiology?"

And outright accuse them of a "cover up"
Brind- "A primer on how to recognize a cover up of the abortion-breast cancer link (ABC link)"

Challenging an established dogma, and going against the crowd can be a valued characteristic for a scientist. I would have more respect for you if you continued to perform studies and challenge those that disagree with you using scientific method. However, you simply state "I am right" without being able to convince even a minority of those in your field. In search of people to agree with you (a similar method you seem to use in your research), you post activist blogs full of conspiracy and misinformation on pro-life websites. This, in my opinion is what really challenges your integrity as a scientist, and puts you in the same league as Andrew Wakefield with his anti-vaccination followers.

If there is a slight risk, a concerned Asian woman could have one less serving of red meat a week to compensate I would guess. Or maybe have a five minute walk somewhere a couple of days a week.

Warnings should be presented with some perspective. However that isn't the duty of researchers alone. Perhaps the real risk is the shabby tabloid 'shock, horror' journalism that seems to be all there is on offer anymore.