Would you trust a study by a tobacco company scientist that showed no connection between smoking and cancer? I didnÂ’t think so.

Why then would you trust a study by an abortion industry scientist and an abortionist regarding fetal pain?

Two of five authors of an article published in a medical journal on Wednesday saying that fetuses probably cannot feel pain before the 29th week of pregnancy did not tell the journal that they had abortion-related activities that might be seen as a conflict of interest, the journal's editor said Wednesday.

The editor, Dr. Catherine D. DeAngelis, of The Journal of the American Medical Association, said in an interview that had she been aware of the activities, the journal most likely would have mentioned them. But she added that the disclosure would not have kept the article from being published, because editors and outside experts who had read the manuscript before publication had found it scientifically sound.

One author, Susan J. Lee, a medical student, is also a lawyer who for eight months from 1999 to 2000 worked in the legal department at Naral, an abortion rights group. Another author, Dr. Eleanor A. Drey, performs abortions and is medical director of an abortion clinic.

Neither tried to conceal those activities from reporters before the journal article was published. Dr. Drey's role as an abortion provider was reported in The New York Times on Wednesday; Ms. Lee was not quoted or mentioned. All the authors are from the University of California, San Francisco.

Anti-abortion groups criticized the journal's failure to mention the two authors' work and said their backgrounds revealed a bias that cast doubt on their findings. The National Right to Life Committee issued a statement yesterday calling Ms. Lee and Dr. Drey "pro-abortion activists" whose conclusions were "predetermined by their political agenda."

The fact that Dr. DeAngelis did not know about the authors' activities was first reported Wednesday in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The journal article questioned the need for proposed state and federal legislation that would compel doctors to tell women having abortions at 20 weeks or later that their fetuses would feel pain and to offer pain medicine specifically for the fetus.

In interviews yesterday, Dr. Drey and Ms. Lee said they did not regard their work as a conflict of interest and so it had not occurred to them to report it to the journal editors.

Really – you make your money working in that particular industry, and your conclusion is that the industry needs not be regulated. If you don’t see the conflict, you have no ethics.

Oh, yeah, you work for the abortion industry. You have no ethics.

Posted by: Greg at 12:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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