When pro-abortion studies hide their funding sources, why does the media ignore it?

An abortion study recently published by the Annals of Internal Medicine and funded in part by long-time, wealthy population control advocates failed to reveal additional funding from an anonymous donor. According to disclosures submitted by authors of the study, titled, “Self-reported Physical Health of Women Who Did and Did Not Terminate Pregnancy After Seeking Abortion Services: A Cohort Study,” funding came from “the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and an anonymous foundation.”

The use of anonymous funders should cause the media to pause, and at the very least, require more scrutiny. Sadly, that isn’t happening.

A blog published by Union of Concerned Scientists (USC), authored by Gretchen Goldman, Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy makes the case for disclosing all those who fund scientific research, writing in part:

First and foremost, funding sources for scientific events, conferences, and research should be disclosed publicly in a clear and obvious location.  This is a given. Scientific journals routinely ask authors to disclose real or perceived conflicts of interest and to list funders in acknowledgements. These are excellent places to disclose all funding sources and the scientific community expects this.

And notably, there are consequences for scientists who don’t and are discovered, as we’ve seen on everything from hydraulic fracturing researchto climate change contrarians to doctors’ pharmaceutical connections…. At a minimum, science should be subject to a greater level of scrutiny if it receives funding from an industry with direct interests in the implications of that science. Would you trust a study funded by the tobacco industry that touted health benefits of smoking? Of course not.

Goldman goes on to add that corporate funding doesn’t necessarily taint the research, but notes it should be looked at with “greater scrutiny.” She added, “We must demand transparency around funding sources and funding relationships so we have the full picture with which to judge. And we must hold actors accountable when we find inappropriate funding relationships.”

The Annals of Internal Medicine and Jama Psychiatry are not the only journals pushing out pro-abortion studies without disclosing all funding sources. The pro-abortion Journal Contraception, has also failed to list previous financial conflicts tied to the abortion pill’s manufacturer, DANCO.  On paper, Contraception tells authors, “You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.”

But, when it comes to abortion, the rule goes out the window.

READ: EXPOSED: Massive conflicts of interest found in new abortion pill study

As Live Action News documented, a recent study on TelAbortion published by the Journal Contraception had “several anonymous donors.” Live Action News discovered this was a common theme, potentially tainting study results published in the Journal. See images below:

The American Journal of Public Health also publishes studies without disclosing where all the funding comes from. Even Planned Parenthood’s former “special affiliate” — the Guttmacher Institute — has published reports which reveal that funding came from an anonymous donor.

Guttmacher’s publication, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, tells authors, “Acknowledgments should include funding information, as well as any employment, appointments or financial arrangements that might be perceived as a conflict of interest.” Yet, one of their most recently cited studies,”Who Seeks Abortions at or After 20 Weeks?” authored by Katrina Kimport and Diana Greene Foster (who obtained the funding for the Annals of Internal Medicine study),  lists the same group of financiers as the Annals of Internal Medicine study, including an anonymous foundation.

READ: Another study promotes self-managed ‘TelAbortion’ as safe. Here’s why you should question that.

The same three abortion and population control advocates who funded the latest study published by Annals of Internal Medicine also funded a 2017 study… which coincidentally included the same time frame (2008-2010) and study locations (“30 abortion facilities”).  That’s because both studies are using flawed data gathered from the so-called Turnaway Study. According to the LA Times, “Researchers from UCSF’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health enrolled 1,132 women who sought abortions at one of 30 facilities in the United States between 2008 and 2010,” for the Turnaway study. Again, this study was shown to have been significantly flawed, but the abortion industry keeps referring to it.

In the case of the flawed Turnaway Study, “Research and institutional funding was provided by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and other private donors. The Turnaway Study started as a small pilot project funded by a seed grant from a private foundation.” Neither the “private donors” nor the “private foundation” have been disclosed.

In addition, for many years, UCSF’s Bixby program, which conducted the Turnaway study, was also funded by these same three foundations.

• Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation (1999-2009).

• David and Lucile Packard Foundation (1999-2009, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017).

• William and Flora Hewlett (1999-2009, 2007, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017).

Despite the failure to disclose all funding sources, authors of these abortion studies routinely claim no conflict of interest exists, while the media pretends not to notice. In part two of this series, Live Action News will break down who the authors of the Annals of Internal Medicine are and reveal further abortion connections from the funding foundations.

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