New Breastfeeding Studies: Mainstream Media Still Ignores the Obvious (Updated)

In March of this year, National Review reported on new studies that, again, reveal the "alarming rate" of breast cancer among women who have had abortions. As National Review notes, "[M]illions of women worldwide who have had abortions over the past several decades are coming down with breast cancer at alarmingly increased rates. Dozens of papers are being published that show the trend."

Also, "A 2014 meta-analysis of 36 studies from mainland China reported a 44 percent overall increase in breast-cancer risk among women who had had an abortion. But the strongest evidence comes from South Asia — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka — where the typical woman marries young, has several children and breastfeeds them all, and never drinks alcohol or smokes cigarettes. In such populations, where there is little else besides abortion to cause breast cancer, relative risks for abortion average greater than fourfold and as high as twentyfold, according to at least a dozen South Asian studies in the past five years alone."

About two weeks ago I linked to a piece from the Christian Post entitled "Women at Risk: Abortion and Breast Cancer [ABC] Linked." It reports, "Of the approximate 74 research studies conducted on the ABC link since 1973, 58 show a direct connection between increased breast cancer rates and induced abortion. All of these studies were conducted by international medical organizations. A more recent study, conducted by a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University, also supports the ABC link."

Nevertheless, the liberal media, most of whom worship at the altar of their own sexual desires, along with those who profit from the killing of children in the womb, have for decades either ignored, or worse, deceived the public on, the ABC link. This is unsurprising, as abortion, like man-made global warming, the welfare state, the homosexual agenda, opposition to guns, and so on, is a tenet in the church of liberalism. How ironic that those who claim to be champions of science are so willfully ignorant when it comes to the science of the womb.

However, they've recently slipped up. No less than The New York Times, ABC News, and the Atlanta-Journal Constitution (AJC) have, in the last few days, reported on the benefits that breastfeeding provides mothers. In a bold headline, The New York Times declared, "Breast-Feeding Is Good for Mothers, Not Just Babies, Studies Suggest."

Most significantly, one study shows that "breast-feeding may help protect women from a particularly vicious type of breast cancer." As the AJC puts it, "Researchers found that mothers who breastfeed reduce their risk of a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer by 20 percent." 

As The Times puts it, "The study, published late last month in Annals of Oncology, found that breast-feeding reduced the risk of hormone receptor negative tumors, a very aggressive type of breast cancer, by up to 20 percent." The Times also notes, "Dr. Marisa Weiss, the paper’s senior author, said that pregnancy and lactation are important steps on the breast’s decades-long path to maturation, with lactation triggering changes in milk duct cells that make the breast more resistant to cancer.

"'The breast gland is immature and unable to do its job — which is to make milk — until it goes through the bat mitzvah of a full-term pregnancy,' Dr. Weiss said." 

Of course, it is seemingly lost on these liberals that an abortion violently, abruptly, and unnaturally interrupts all of this. What's more, none of this is new information. Over five years ago, "while carrying out research into how breastfeeding can protect women from developing the killer disease [breast cancer]," scientists at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka found that while "breastfeeding offered significant protection from cancer, they also noted that the highest reported risk factor in developing the disease was abortion."

As researchers then found, the link between abortion and breast cancer "is caused by high levels of oestradiol, a hormone that stimulates breast growth during pregnancy. Its effects are minimized in women who take pregnancy to full term but it remains at dangerous levels in those who have abortions."

Over a decade ago, Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, MD, testifying under oath declared:

"Induced abortion boosts breast cancer risk because it stops the normal physiological changes in the breast that occur during a full term pregnancy and that lower a mother’s breast cancer risk. A woman who has a full term pregnancy at 20 has a 90% lower risk of breast cancer than a woman who waits until age 30. 

"Breast tissue after puberty and before a term pregnancy is immature and cancer-vulnerable. Seventy five percent of this tissue is Type 1 lobules where ductal cancers start and 25 percent is Type 2 lobules where lobular cancers start. Ductal cancers account for 85% of all breast cancers while lobular cancers account for 12-15% of breast cancers. 

As soon as a woman conceives, the embryo secretes human chorionic gonadotrophin or hCG, the hormone we check for in pregnancy tests. 

"HCG causes the mother’s ovaries to increase the levels of estrogen and progesterone in her body resulting in a doubling of the amount of breast tissue she has; in effect, she then has more Type 1 and 2 lobules where cancers start. 

"After mid pregnancy at 20 weeks, the fetus/placenta makes hPL, another hormone that starts maturing her breast tissue so that it can make milk. It is only after 32 weeks that she has made enough of the mature Type 4 lobules that are cancer resistant so that she lowers her risk of breast cancer."

Additionally, another recent study "suggests that breast-feeding may act as a sort of 'reset' button for metabolism after pregnancy, helping women who had gestational diabetes avoid becoming lifelong diabetics." 

Also, these findings "complement earlier research showing that women who breast-feed have a lower risk for breast and ovarian cancers, Type 2 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis."

Thus, the abortion industry and its apologists are not only responsible for the slaughter of tens-of-millions of women in the womb, but in their efforts to protect this barbaric and immoral practice, they are also responsible for the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of their adult female customers. 

Just who is conducting the "War on Women?"

Update: 

A comment on Free Republic (thanks DWW!), where this piece was linked, said the following:

"When a woman has a spontaneous miscarriage the hormones kick in the way they do after a full pregnancy when the hormones do their work to shut off the system, so to speak. 

"Now, if a woman has an abortion, these cells remain open and do not close because they are given the hormonal signal to close. When the cells remain open they have no protection from invading cancer cells. That is why breastfeeding is one of the best ways to protect the breasts from getting cancer. 

"To sum it up - an abortion keeps the breast tissue in an open position which is an invitation to cancer."

This is an important point that I neglected to address above. A "spontaneous abortion" (more commonly called a "miscarriage") is vastly different than an "induced (elective) abortion" when it comes to increased dangers of breast cancer. As Karen Malec, president and co-founder of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer notes, 

"Most miscarriages do not raise breast cancer risk because most are abnormal first trimester pregnancies without the surge in hormones that accompanies normal pregnancies. If the mother is not being overexposed to estrogen while it's in the presence of progesterone, then her cancer-susceptible lobules are not being stimulated to multiply. Her breasts aren't being stimulated to grow, and she's not growing more places for cancers to start. By contrast, most abortions are normal pregnancies which have elevated pregnancy hormone levels that stimulate breast growth. Second trimester miscarriages and early premature births before 32 weeks gestation also raise breast cancer risk."

(See a version of this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com