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Dr. Stoll:
I found this article about mammography that I wanted to share with other readers. I want to thank you and others on this board for helping to bring some light to this issue.
I feel like I have been given my body back, and I can start making my own decisions, rather than having the medical monopoly decide what will happen to my body.
Thanks,
Pam
Mammography Is Dangerous Besides Ineffective, Warns Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
CHICAGO, Feb. 6 (Cancer Prevention Coalition) -- The following was released by Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago:
Recent confirmation by Danish researchers of longstanding evidence on the ineffectiveness of screening mammography has been greeted by extensive nationwide headlines.
Entirely missing from this coverage, however, has been any reference to the well-documented dangers of mammography.
Screening mammography poses significant and cumulative risks of breast cancer for premenopausal women.
The routine practice of taking four films of each breast annually results in approximately 1 rad (radiation absorbed dose) exposure, about 1,000 times greater than that from a chest x-ray.
The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade's screening.
These risks are even greater for younger women subject to "baseline screening." -- Radiation risks are some four-fold greater for the 1 to 2 percent of women who are silent carriers of the A-T (ataxia-telangiectasia) gene; by some estimates this accounts for up to 20 percent of all breast cancers diagnosed annually.
Since 1928, physicians have been warned to handle "cancerous breasts with care -- for fear of accidentally disseminating cells" and spreading the cancer.
Nevertheless, mammography entails tight and often painful breast compression, particularly in premenopausal women, which could lead to distant and lethal spread of malignant cells by rupturing small blood vessels in or around small undetected breast cancers.
Missed cancers are common in premenopausal women owing to their dense breasts, and also in postmenopausal women on estrogen replacement therapy.
Mistakenly diagnosed cancers are common.
For women with multiple risk factors including a strong family history and early menarche -- just those strongly urged to have annual mammograms -- the cumulative risks of false positives can reach as high as 100 percent over a decade's screening.
The widespread acceptance of screening has lead to overdiagnosis of pre-invasive cancer (ductal carcinoma in situ), sometimes treated radically by mastectomy and radiation, and even chemotherapy.
As increasing numbers of premenopausal women are responding to aggressively promoted screening, imaging centers are becoming flooded.
Resultingly, patients referred for diagnostic mammography are now experiencing potentially dangerous delays, up to several months, before they can be examined.
The dangers and unreliability of screening are compounded by its growing and inflationary costs.
Screening all premenopausal women would cost $2.5 billion annually, about 14 percent of estimated Medicare spending on prescription drugs.
These costs would be increased some fourfold if the highly profitable industry, enthusiastically supported by radiologists, succeeds in replacing film machines, costing about $100,000 each, with the latest high-tech digital machines recently approved by the FDA, costing about $400,000 each, for which there is no evidence of improved effectiveness.
The ineffectiveness and dangers of mammography pose an agonizing dilemma for the millions of women anxious for reassurance of early detection of breast cancer. However, the dilemma is more apparent than real.
As proven by a September 2000 publication, based on a unique large-scale screening study by University of Toronto epidemiologists, monthly breast self-examination (BSE) following brief training, coupled with annual clinical breast examination (CBE) by a trained health care professional, is at least as effective as mammography in detecting early tumors, and also safe.
National networks of BSE and CBE clinics staffed by trained nurses should be established to replace screening mammography.
Apart from their minimal costs, such clinics would empower women and free them from increasing dependence on industrialized medicine and its complicit medical institutions.
(For further details and supporting documentation, see "Dangers and Unreliability of Mammography: Breast Examination is a Safe, Effective and Practical Alternative," by Samuel S. Epstein, Barbara Seaman and Rosalie Bertell, International Journal of Health Services, volume 31(3):605-615, 2001.)
SOURCE Cancer Prevention Coalition
Web site: http://www.preventcancer.com /
In Reply to: Mammography Is Dangerous posted by Pam on April 15, 2002 at 23:02:26:
Thank you for that article. I don't understand how western medicine thought that radiating a breast was the best way to prevent cancer. Yeesh.
In Reply to: Mammography Is Dangerous posted by Pam on April 15, 2002 at 23:02:26:
Pam
How would you suggest somebody to get checked if they think they have cancer? I think I may have a problem I just have not learned how to solve it yet.
Thanks,
Worried
In Reply to: Mammography Is Dangerous posted by Pam on April 15, 2002 at 23:02:26:
Thanks, Pam.
Namaste`
Walt
In Reply to: Mammography Is Dangerous posted by Pam on April 15, 2002 at 23:02:26:
Thanks, Pam -
I am so happy to hear that you are taking charge of your body and feeling confident! I remember when that book entitled "It's Your Body" was published in 1977. After that, many other books were written on that subject just for the reasons you have mentioned in your posts. I have had three mammograms - one was in 1978,when my doctor panicked and said we had to find out if my fibrocystic diseased breasts (then called cystic mastitis) might have a cancerous lump. After that I always worried about the radiation caused by that mammogram and refused to have a yearly mammogram. I finally found a doctor willing to see me without that. Then, just two years ago, my doctor retired and the new doctor insisted that I have a mammogram and I gave in. It was normal, but again I worried about the radiation. I have heard of some women, and known some, who would have a normal mammogram and then 6 months later found a lump themselves! I always wondered whether the mammograms caused the lump to increase in size. Women who feel as we do are in the minority sadly.
Every woman I have known with breast cancer (4 in all) has found the lump accidentally. They are all alive and well, even though they did not find the lump "early" on a mammogram! Some doctors feel that the location of the lump determines whether or not it will spread.
So, I thank you very very much for helping me stick to my decision not to have mammograms. (Sorry this is so long) Wishing you all the best, Raisa
In Reply to: Re: Mammography Is Dangerous posted by Randy on April 16, 2002 at 02:40:47:
Thank you so much for posting this. When I go in for my ultrasound today (uterus) I think I'll lay a copy in the waiting room *grin*.
Thanks,
Trish
In Reply to: Re: Mammography Is Dangerous (Archive.) posted by Walt Stoll on April 16, 2002 at 10:11:31:
Dr. Stoll:
I will never have another mammogram. Mammograms are very painful, and when I had my first one, there was no signs of tumors.
But, a few years later, I went back for a mammogram, after I found a hard mass, and I was diagnosed with cancer.
I was terrified. I thought that people with cancer would die in a few months. But, I've had cancer cells for close to 10 years, and they have not been any horrible problem.
The location of the cancer is important. If it is in the breast, it won't kill you because the breast is not a vital organ.
And even when I was diagnosed with cancer, the treatment I got was far worse than the cancer I had.
If I could go back and redo things, these are the steps I would take:
1.) Pray for Guidance
2.) Have Thermography
3.) Avoid All Surgery
4.) Have Radiation for the Tumor
5.) Build Up My Immune System
But, it is too late for me. I am damaged beyond repair because of the biopsies, reconstructive surgery, and the chemotherapy.
And, I still have the cancer!!!
I am no longer afraid of cancer. The human body has natural defenses against these invaders.
But, the body has no defense against the oncologists and plastic surgeons who cut women's bodies apart with biopsies, mastectomies, and reconstructive surgery.
If any of the women on this board need to read true breast cancer stories of other women, they can go to Redflagsweekly.com and select the Breast Reconstruction information.
I hope that I can save at least one woman from the Hell and torture that I was put through by the doctors.
I'm crippled for life because of the surgeons -- I don't want this to happen to any other women.
I'm not afraid of the cancer, I'm afraid of those criminal doctors who butcher women for money.
Thanks,
Pam
In Reply to: Re: Mammography Is Dangerous (Archive.) posted by Pam on April 16, 2002 at 18:40:13:
Hi, Walt & Pam
You should've heard my pcp this past saturday when I told him I was not taking the hrt medication given to me by my gyn, that I wasn't going back to him, nor was I going to have a mammorgram Explained to him that my gyn knew I was due for a mammorgram this past October, however, released me until June without giving me a script. Nor did I remind him to give me a script. I went over 40 odd years prior to having my first baseline, and then another one to clarify the results. Sure my pcp will insist I at least get a mammorgam and give me a script, but I won't follow through. He knows of a young woman who recently died a horrible death as a result of breast cancer. I kind of wonder if she went through breast surgery and died due to doctor error(s). Don't see men having xrays of their genital areas every year in order to prevent cancer. Probably because it's NOT necessary for them, nor is it necessary for us women!
In Reply to: Re: Mammography Is Dangerous posted by Raisa on April 16, 2002 at 10:46:02:
I had my second (and final) mammogram done around ten years ago (when I was 55). An "abnormal" growth was found and I was submitted to an awful procedure during which needles were placed into what they thought was the lump area, then I was x-rayed, then more needles and x-rays till they got the lump pinpointed (literally). The lump was surgically removed and found to be benign (which I had pretty well suspected all along) - just a strong, gut hunch. It was just after that time that I read about thermography - far safer, far better at early detection, and far less expensive. I made a few inquiries as to where I might have that done the next time but everyone played dumb (or, maybe they weren't "playing" at all!)
It was probably around that time that I decided that I didn't "need" doctors - short of trauma or acute infection. But, that I did need to become self-informed. Blessings on Walt, and his "helpers" for this terrific site. And also, Walt,for your fine book - I anxiously await the next one.
By the way, the current issue of "Alternative Medicine" has a pretty good article on mammography.
In Reply to: Re: Mammography Is Dangerous (Archive.) posted by Pam on April 16, 2002 at 18:40:13:
nmi
In Reply to: Why do so many die from breast cancer. No, breast is not vital, but the organs breast cancer spread to are. geez, think will ya? :)nmi posted by ** on April 17, 2002 at 12:57:06:
~~~8>
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