Mammograms can cause cancer
I know I have posted on this before but I found a very good article just now on this topic that I want to include here again to continue to emphasize, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, something you won’t be hearing from the media or your doctor and that is that mammograms in women under 35 can actually cause 75 cancers for every 15 breast cancers it identifies!
Read the full article here and become educated on the real facts that you won’t hear from your doctor.
Excerpts from the article I’d like to highlight:
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Is mammography an effective tool for detecting tumors? Some critics say no. In a Swedish study of 60,000 women, 70 percent of the mammographically detected tumors weren’t tumors at all. These “false positives” aren’t just financial and emotional strains, they may also lead to many unnecessary and invasive biopsies. In fact, 70 to 80 percent of all positive mammograms do not, upon biopsy, show any presence of cancer.
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Since mammographic screening was introduced, the incidence of a form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) has increased by 328 percent. Two hundred percent of this increase is allegedly due to mammography. In addition to harmful radiation, mammography may also help spread existing cancer cells due to the considerable pressure placed on the woman’s breast during the procedure. According to some health practitioners, this compression could cause existing cancer cells to metastasize from the breast tissue.
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The majority of health experts agree that the risk of breast cancer for women under 35 is not high enough to warrant the risk of radiation exposure. Similarly, the risk of breast cancer to women over 55 justifies the risk of mammograms. The statistics about mammography and women between the ages of 40 and 55 are the most contentious. A 1992 Canadian National Breast Cancer Study showed that mammography had no positive effect on mortality for women between the ages of 40 and 50. In fact, the study seemed to suggest that women in that age group are more likely to die of breast cancer when screened regularly.
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While screening is an important step in fighting breast cancer, many researchers are looking for alternatives to mammography. Burton Goldberg totes the safety and accuracy of new thermography technologies. Able to detect cancers at a minute physical stage of development, thermography does not use x-rays, nor is there any compression of the breast. Also important, new thermography technologies do not lose effectiveness with dense breast tissue, decreasing the chances of false-negative results.
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What I find to be the most deplorable about all this is – that when I discovered my own lump, the first thing the doctor wanted to do was a mammogram and in fact, the breast compression was the WORST thing that could be done to a breast with a suspcious lump. The mammogram in the end showed nothing more than we already knew – that there was a mass in my breast – so the risk was not worth the result at all. Did anyone tell me that or explain the risks? No. That is what really pisses me off. Did anyone tell me that sticking a needle into my breast carried a risk of spreading the cancer if it were in fact cancer? No! This kind of attitude and lack of information between doctor and patient really erodes my trust in all doctors. Your best protection is to BE INFORMED and I hope this blog is helping you in that endeavor.