[Health&Healing] Dr.s Conclude Mammograms Offer No Health Benefits

[Guest guest]

Comments?

Misty L. Trepke

http://health.

 

Mammograms offer no health benefits whatsoever, doctors conclude

Wednesday, February 14, 2007 by: David Gutierrez

Printable version Key concepts: mammograms, doctors and breast

cancer.

 

http://www.newstarget.com/021608.html

 

(NewsTarget) An increasing number of doctors are contesting the

claim that annual mammograms decrease women's risk of dying from

breast cancer.

 

Danish researcher Dr. Peter Gotzsche first made this claim in a

study published in " The Lancet " in October 2006. Gotzsche had re-

analyzed the studies originally done on the benefits of mammograms

and found them unconvincing.

 

Since then, other doctors have begun to assert that in addition to

failing to offer protection, mammograms — which involve exposing

patients to radiation —may actually increase women's risk of cancer.

 

" The latest evidence shifts the balance towards harm and away from

benefits, " said Dr. Michael Baum of University College in London.

 

According to Canadian columnist Dr. W. Gifford -Jones, women between

the ages of 40 and 49 who have regular mammograms are twice as

likely to die from breast cancer as women who are not screened.

 

" Experts say you have to screen 2,000 women for 10 years for one

benefit, " he wrote recently.

 

Gifford-Jones also points to other risks, from the physical to the

psychological. According to some authorities, the squeezing of

women's breasts during mammograms may rupture blood vessels, causing

cancer to spread to other parts of the body and actually increasing

a patient's risk of death.

 

He also pointed to the trauma suffered by women who receive false

positives from their mammograms, and to the dangerous sense of

security felt by those who receive false negatives.

 

Studies show that mammograms fail to detect cancer 30 percent of the

time in women aged 40 to 49. In addition, it can take eight years

before a breast tumor is large enough to detect, by which time the

cancer could have spread to other parts of the body.

 

" Mammograms actually harm far more women than they help, " said Mike

Adams, author of " The Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D, " a

free report that teaches prevention strategies for breast and

prostate cancer. " They are used more as a recruiting tool to ensnare

women into a system of medical control based on false diagnosis and

fear tactics. Most women then give in to chemotherapy, surgery or

radiation treatments that may ultimately harm them or even kill

them. "