Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Jul 29, 2009 / 12:14 am (CNA).- A Turkish researcher has reported a statistically significant 66 percent increase in breast cancer risk among women who have had an abortion.

Dr. Vahit Ozmen and his colleagues at the Istanbul Medical Faculty and Magee-Women's hospital conducted a retrospective study in breast cancer risk factors which discovered the connection. Their study was published in the World Journal of Surgical Oncology, an open access, peer reviewed online medical journal.

The researchers also reviewed the contemporary literature on the possible abortion-breast cancer link, saying “the majority of the studies reported that induced abortion was associated with increased breast cancer risk.”

Their study also found significantly decreased breast cancer risks for women who use oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy. According to the Poughkeepsie, New York-based Breast Cancer Prevention Institute (BCPI), this contradicts findings of the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Cancer Institute and “what has been almost universally observed around the world.”

BCPI director Joel Brind, a professor of endocrinology at Baruch College at City University of New York, said the findings call into question the National Cancer Institute’s 2003 declaration that it was “established” that there was no connection between abortion and breast cancer.

In an analysis of the study Brind said the researchers probably underestimated the breast cancer risk associated with abortion because of “selection bias,” in that a disproportionate number of women with modern lifestyles, including abortions, were likely overrepresented among the controls. If there is indeed a link between abortion and breast cancer, their cancer rates would have been elevated but nonetheless classified as normal.

He suggested these modern women would also be more likely to take contraceptives and hormonal therapies, but also would live healthier lifestyles. The “protective effects” of their modern lifestyles would then correlate with lower cancer rates.

The new study, Brind said, is “honest research” that cracks the “wall of denial erected by our increasingly nonsensical and bizarre political institutions.”

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