On the September 24 broadcast of Backbone Radio on KNUS 710-AM, host John Andrews and guest Eve Sanchez Silver made the false claim that abortion is linked to an increase in breast cancer. Sanchez Silver referenced a 1980 study that has since been debunked as her evidence of “conclusive proof” that “there [is] a physiological pathway between abortion and breast cancer.” Referring to studies compiled by Sanchez Silver, Andrews claimed, “there is not yet conclusive but pretty darn sobering and serious and persuasive evidence that women are at greater risk of contracting breast cancer if they have had an abortion.” In fact, the National Cancer Institute and other medical researchers have found there is no such statistical correlation between abortions and breast cancer.

During the broadcast, Andrews, a Republican who previously served as the president of the Colorado Senate and is now a Denver Post columnist, commented that “there is not yet conclusive but pretty darn sobering and serious and persuasive evidence that women are at greater risk of contracting breast cancer if they have had an abortion.” Sanchez Silver responded by saying, “I heard you say earlier that it's not conclusive proof. But actually, in 1980 the Russos from Fox Chase Cancer Center proved that there was a physiological pathway between abortion and breast cancer because the fact that the breast is an organ." In fact, an October 1, 2005, medical history report by Dr. Patricia Jasen of Lakehead University in Canada titled “Breast Cancer and the Politics of Abortion in the United States” notes that "Jose and Irma Russo of the Michigan Cancer Foundation in Detroit set out in 1978 to discover the mechanism behind" the link between abortion and breast cancer and that:

Over the next two decades, however, their findings would be cited repeatedly as evidence that pregnancy begins a process of breast change which, when stopped by abortion, put female rats (and thus humans) at greater risk of cancer than those who had never been pregnant.

While the Russo study concluded that rats that experience a full-term pregnancy are less likely to get breast cancer, the study also concluded that rats that never became pregnant had an equivalent increase in cancer risk as those that experienced induced abortions. An abstract of the 1980 Russo study notes that “while pregnancy and lactation protected the mammary gland from developing carcinomas and benign lesions by induction of full differentiation, pregnancy interruption did not elicit sufficient differentiation in the gland to be protective, and these animals were at the same risk as virgin animals treated with the carcinogen.”

An October 27, 1994, Newsday article reported that "[t]he reason for this, Irma Russo said in an interview in August, was that in the mammary glands of virginal rats, there are 'undifferentiated structures' called terminal end buds, which are capable of very rapid cell turnover and which is where most rat mammary cancers originate. A full-term pregnancy causes these buds to develop into different structures that multiply much more slowly and presumably are more able to repair DNA damaged by a carcinogen." The article also reported that “Russo said this theory fits in with data about humans -- younger women exposed to the atom bomb at Hiroshima developed more breast cancer than older women also exposed to it, for instance, she said.”

As Media Matters for America previously has noted, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the U.S. government's “principal agency for cancer research and training.” A March 2003 NCI report on abortion, miscarriage, and breast cancer risk found that neither "[i]nduced abortion" nor "[r]ecognized spontaneous abortion" are “associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.” The report was based on the findings of a February 2003 workshop on early reproductive events and breast cancer; the NCI's board of scientific advisers and board of scientific counselors reviewed and discussed the findings and declared them to be well-established.

According to a March 7, 2003, article by Jennifer Couzin in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's journal Science, NCI “summoned 100 cancer experts, ranging from epidemiologists to mouse modelers, to a workshop in Bethesda, Maryland, last week to review the evidence. Their conclusion: There is no association between abortion and breast cancer.” That article reported that, “one researcher, endocrinologist Joel Brind of Baruch College in New York City, argued in favor of an abortion-cancer link, [although] the other attendees agreed that scientific research does not indicate excess risk.”

An NCI “Cancer Facts” report on the findings of the breast cancer workshop addressed the questionable nature of studies that purport to show a link between abortion and breast cancer, stating:

Most of these studies, however, were flawed in a number of ways that can lead to unreliable results. Only a small number of women were included in many of these studies, and for most, the data were collected only after breast cancer had been diagnosed, and women's histories of miscarriage and abortion were based on their “self-report” rather than on their medical records. Since then, better-designed studies have been conducted. These newer studies examined large numbers of women, collected data before breast cancer was found, and gathered medical history information from medical records rather than simply from self-reports, thereby generating more reliable findings. The newer studies consistently showed no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.

The NCI report was corroborated by a March 2004 report in the British medical journal The Lancet, which discussed the findings of an analysis of several international studies on the relationship between breast cancer and abortion. The analysis, which was conducted by the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer and used data from 53 studies conducted in 16 countries with “liberal” abortion laws, concluded: “Pregnancies that end as a spontaneous or induced abortion do not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.”

In a July 31, 2003, statement, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists expressed its “agreement” with the NCI conclusions and said that "[t]here is no evidence supporting a causal link between induced abortion and subsequent development of breast cancer."

There is no evidence supporting a causal link between induced abortion and subsequent development of breast cancer, according to a committee opinion issued today by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). ACOG's opinion is in agreement with the conclusion reached at the National Cancer Institute's Early Reproductive Events and Breast Cancer Workshop, which met in March 2003.

ACOG's review of the research on a link between abortion and later development of breast cancer concluded that studies on the issue were inconsistent and difficult to interpret, mainly due to study design flaws. Some studies showed either a significant decrease in breast cancer risk after abortion or found no effect. The most recent studies from China, the United Kingdom, and the US found no effect of induced abortion on breast cancer risk.

In a January 28, 2004, statement by the United Kingdom's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, honorary secretary professor Allan Templeton noted that “evidence now concludes that induced abortion is not associated with an increase in the risk of breast cancer”:

The College is currently in the process of updating its guidance on the care of women requesting induced abortion. As part of this process we have carried out an extensive review of the literature in this area and the evidence now concludes that induced abortion is not associated with an increase in the risk of breast cancer.

The decision to have an abortion is often a very difficult one and it is important that women have access to accurate and unbiased information to help them take a course of action that is appropriate for them in their personal circumstances. It is not helpful to women to raise anxieties about putative associations between abortion and breast cancer, when the evidence now overwhelmingly points to there being no increased risk.

From the September 24 broadcast of KNUS 710-AM's Backbone Radio:

ANDREWS: So there is an irreconcilable conflict, isn't there? A contradiction between this very laudable effort to save lives, to save women whose lives are threatened -- and some have lost their lives to this scourge of breast cancer -- on the one hand, but then the taking of lives of the innocent unborn child through abortion on the other hand. Eve Silver, what about the clinical evidence of the higher risk that a woman faces of breast cancer who has felt it necessary to have an abortion? Is there a cover-up going on there?

SANCHEZ SILVER: I believe so. Especially when you consider the fact that Planned Parenthood's breast services are down. Between 2002 and 2003, when it still was receiving this [Susan G.] Komen [Breast Cancer Foundation] money, Planned Parenthood's breast services went down and abortions increased by 14,000. Breast exams decreased, though, by 141,000. So --

ANDREWS: And as far as the physiological clinical research, evidence that women face a higher risk of breast cancer having --

SANCHEZ SILVER: Absolutely.

ANDREWS: -- had an abortion. That -- I know that your website -- StopAbortionBreastCancer.org -- has links to a lot of detail, a lot of respectable peer-reviewed clinical studies that document this problem. Again, Eve, isn't there an effort to muffle that, or to say that it will go away -- to discredit the validity of those studies?

SANCHEZ SILVER: Absolutely. There is a muffling of that information by all of the major organizations that claim to have women's best interests at heart. And believe it or not --

ANDREWS: Please hold the thought. We're going to a break. We'll talk more with Eve Sanchez Silver. She's addressing the Colorado Right to Life banquet in Denver next Saturday night, the 30th. You need to know more about that. You need to visit her website: StopAbortionBreastCancer.org.

[...]

ANDREWS: Our guest is Eve Sanchez Silver. As she explained to us a moment ago, she is a survivor of both of abortion that she underwent and of breast cancer. And the concern is that in two ways there is funding being channeled from -- ostensibly from breast cancer treatment and research into the performing of abortions by Planned Parenthood. To which obviously a great many women who participate in fundraising through the Komen Foundation -- the big Race for the Cure event coming up October 8th here in Denver -- many women who have deep pro-life convictions would object to this and would wish to do as Eve has done. And that is, find another way to support breast cancer research other than through the Komen Foundation.

And -- quit gasping at whatever you see on the television set there.

KRISTA KAFER [Backbone Radio assistant and author]: We have a Bronco fan in the room.

ANDREWS: The Broncos! It's a secret that the Broncos are playing! OK. Eve Silver also points out that not only in the area of funding, but in the area of clinical research, there is not yet conclusive but pretty darn sobering and serious and persuasive evidence that women are at greater risk of contracting breast cancer if they have had an abortion. If they have failed to take the adoption opportunity for a child that they would bear but cannot for some reason go ahead and mother for themselves. So, bringing Eve back into the conversation and reminding listeners that she will be speaking here in Denver next Saturday night, the 30th of September, at the Colorado Right to Life Banquet. Learn all about that at ColoradoRighttoLife.org.

Eve, Krista Kafer, my partner, had mentioned earlier the heartbreak that a lot of women feel as they look back on the abortion that they chose to have, to end a pregnancy and wish that they had approached that in a different way, that they could undo it somehow. And if it's not too painful for you to discuss, I just wanted to invite you to discuss and to give your thoughts and feelings about that.

SANCHEZ SILVER: One of the things that I can say is that, as a medical research analyst and a survivor, it's an outrage that women aren't made aware of how the breast works. I heard you say earlier that it's not conclusive proof. But actually, in 1980 the Russos from Fox Chase Cancer Center proved that there is a physiological pathway between abortion and breast cancer because the fact that the breast is an organ. It's not fully developed at birth the way all the other organs are. And it does not fully develop until after 32 weeks of pregnancy. That's when life-preserving breast cell changes occur. During those last eight weeks of a full-term pregnancy, breast cells mature into milk-producing, cancer-resistant tissue. All the other bodily organs already are formed when we are born. But women need to know that the breast does not mature until after a full-term pregnancy.

KAFER: And abortion can arrest that development and actually then leave the breast vulnerable for cancer. Isn't that what the research is pointing to?

SANCHEZ SILVER: Research shows that the immature breast cells -- those are called type 1 and 2 nodules -- that those are then exposed to the estrogen, which -- actually, the estrogen, what it does is it makes cells -- it forces growth. It forces those immature cells to grow and multiply, and that's kind of similar to what cancer does. It grows into healthy tissue and multiplies. Well, estrogen is carcinogenic, and we know that that's so, because the World Health Organization has told us that estrogen is carcinogenic, and as the little girl grows, that estrogen forces more and more growth. That's how her breasts become larger. But the truth is, the cells inside the breast are never mature -- not even for adult women -- until after a full-term pregnancy. And interestingly enough, nuns and women who are lesbians and lesbian lifestyles, they do have higher incidence of breast cancer.

Estrogens actually cause breast cells in type 1 and 2 to be attacked and have cancerous spots on them. And that's how that happens. And an abortion before 32 weeks of pregnancy doesn't allow those breast cells to change into the milk-producing cells. You think of broccoli, you know the little tips at the end? Well, they're like little buds that form at the end and they become milk-producing cells. And that's cancer-resistant cells. Women who don't know about this, and don't know about the fact that family history increases breast cancers, increases the risk of breast cancers -- like myself, when I had my first abortion -- I had two -- and I was 16 years old when I had mine. There's no way I could have known what my family history was, because my history was still in my future.