Comments on: Mammogram uproar

By: medconsumers

medconsumers — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:10:39 +0000

You’re right. We have been conditioned to fear breast cancer. Fear-mongering is essential to the promotion of all cancer screening tests. I cannot explain why mammography is far more likely to harm than help women without symptoms any better than I did in my reply to comment #6 below. See the 2nd paragraph that describes the three different forms of breast cancer and click into the hyperlink to the Cochrane Review at the end of my reply. The latter indicates that mammography is ten times more likely to ruin your life than save your life. Mammography screening itself results in the “horror of being maimed” unnecessarily. This Cochrane review shows that ten healthy women are treated unnecessarily for every one woman who avoids a breast cancer death.

By: medconsumers

medconsumers — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:36:56 +0000

Thank you, Bonnie, you're right. Here's the link to the 2009 "summary of the evidence." That statement I quoted---and the other one near the end of my response to comment #6 below---do not appear in the 2009 summary. I don't know why. Both are as true today as they were in 2002.

By: Bonnie Spanier

Bonnie Spanier — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:14:44 +0000

Your analysis, as usual, Maryann Napoli, is excellent. But I may have found an inadvertent error in your answer to comment #6 below. Your link to the USPSTF “summary of evidence” is for the 2002 report, not the current 2009 one. You quote “Even in the best screening settings, most deaths from breast cancer are not currently prevented.” I cannot yet determine whether the 2009 Summary includes that statement, but your link is to 2002, not 2009.
Your ability to write so clearly about such a complex issue and its many studies and interpretations is just awesome! Much appreciated.

By: Laurel Robertson

Laurel Robertson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:24:58 +0000

I do appreciate your amazing work so much!

But, please. To expect normal women, even educated ones, to navigate this roiling mix seems seriously unrealistic. Most of us practice the best health care we can, but few of us have training in statistics. Please give us your own concise ten-line recommendation list — if possible! I don’t want you to get sued or something. Each point could link to more info, as above.

Please consider that isn’t just that we don’t want to DIE of it. We have been conditioned to loathe and fear the demon breast cancer, and to live in horror of being maimed because of having been diagnosed & treated late. It is not overstatement to say that “Breast Cancer Awareness” makes it scarier not to risk being over-tested than it is to hold off — at least, until you get one of those false positives.

I haven’t had a mammogram because I have followed this discussion for so long, and because it hurts me to see the repeated rounds of incapacitating anxiety my friends have suffered from multiple needle biopsies, for nothing. Nothing but their costs in money and time, and, maybe, injury.

How I wish we could seriously address known causes (at least) and curb this grotesquely profitable industry of breast “health care”! Well, you have done a lot on that score, and bravo.

Thank you.

By: medconsumers

medconsumers — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:09:01 +0000

Unfortunately, you misunderstood. Go back and read my description of the three types of breast cancer. Early detection of one form of breast cancer will definitely save lives, but this is a small category representing only about 15% of all deadly breast cancers. I agree with your last point about prevention.