Brind strikes back at legion of critics

Interim special 

American biology and endocrinology professor Dr. Joel Brind has reacted after finding himself the target of critical comments by the executive director of the World Conference on Breast Cancer. 

Dr. Brind presented overwhelming evidence on the link between induced abortion and breast cancer during the July conference that drew delegates from around the world to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. 

In a post-conference interview August 24 on radio station CFLY's City Limits news program, conference director Janet Collins was asked about the "very controversial" Joel Brind. She replied, " ... But even he said that what he had to say was 'iffy' so to speak. He even admitted that himself." 

'Libel' reference brings action 

Those comments touched off calls to the station's news director by Campaign Life Coalition, and only after CLC's Ontario president, Mary Ellen Douglas called the comments "libelous", did station management contract Dr. Brind. 

In an August 31 interview, Dr. Brind said the comments by Janet Collins are "in fact, quite opposite to the message I brought to the conference. Breast cancer and abortion are connected; the evidence is overwhelming around the world."  

Brind said the statistical evidence is substantial and the biological evidence is completely consistent with it. He also said " ... And it really is for the executive director of the conference no less then to turn around and tell the world, not in my presence, that I said pretty much the opposite of what I said is nothing less than an outrage." 

Bella Abzug, President of Women's Environment and Development and a well known abortion supporter, was also critical of Brind's meta-analysis during the conference. Abortion rights weren't far from the surface during the convention with delegates constantly hearing of a call for a "global action plan" to halt breast cancer. 

Meanwhile, The Interim has obtained information from unnamed sources showing a group of breast cancer survivors with a risky action plan. 

In a letter to highly placed politicians, Elizabeth Whamond, president of the Canadian Breast Cancer Network, asks for support "for our request to the Minister of Health, the Hon. Allan Rock, to support this consumer network over the next five years as part of the broad reconstituted Canadian Breast Cancer Initiative within Canada." 

Support is solicited for proposed position statements, particularly the policy recommendations relating to breast cancer issues, which respect the diverse health needs and values of all Canadians. 

Induced abortion and breast cancer top the list, and the unborn doesn't factor in with the "values of all Canadians." 

The network calls for "support policies which ensure the unproven potential links between breast cancer and abortion are not used to restrict the continued availability of safe, legal abortions as an insured medical procedure in Canada, free from measures that would intimidate women or doctors. 

Selective references 

The group quotes the Canadian Cancer Society saying that "no credible information exists to demonstrate a link between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer." As well, the Canadian Breast Cancer Network supports a Danish study (which rejects the abortion-breast cancer link), one that Dr. Brind has described as seriously flawed. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Brind continues to produce the Abortion Breast Cancer Quarterly Update, putting in layman's terms "what is arcane and inaccessible to all but a very few" involved in epidemiology research. In December, a publication by Dr. Brind in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health will show how abortion and breast cancer in Norwegian women was kept under wraps. 

(Editor's note: See information about Dr. Brind's Breast Cancer Quarterly Update at the bottom left hand side of this page).