Hooray - fewer mammograms!

[Guest guest]

" WC Douglass " <realheath

 

Hooray - fewer mammograms!

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 08:37:12 -0400

 

Daily Dose

 

Friday September 24, 2004

 

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Good news in breast cancer screening

 

As you know, I've been one of America's most outspoken critics

of the diagnostically useless, tumor-promoting mammogram. And

now, finally, I've got some reason to rejoice…

 

A new survey recently released by a government advisory panel

called the Institute of Medicine (a pro-mammogram group, by the

way) reports an 8% DECREASE in the number of breast-

squashing — er, I mean mammogram — facilities in the United

States over the last 4 years. Now this is a trend in mainstream

medicine that's worth trumpeting!

 

According to a recent New York Times online piece, the likely

reasons more than 800 mammography clinics have closed up shop

range from low reimbursement rates from Medicare and insurance

companies and the skyrocketing cost of malpractice coverage.

Also, a fear of lawsuits as a result of missed tumors may be

contributing to reluctance among doctors and clinics that once

offered mammogram services to continue doing so.

 

Funny, isn't it, how mainstream medical advisory bodies like the

Institute of Medicine can't put two and two together: If more

mammograms equal more lawsuits and higher premiums, it must

be because they AREN'T RELIABLE. If they were really

beneficial, accurate diagnostic tools, they'd have a good enough

track record that no one would be suing, right?

 

But whatever the reason, the end result is that fewer breasts under

the Stars and Stripes will be compressed and irradiated, and that's

a GOOD thing.

 

In case you haven't been with me very long, the reason for my

staunch opposition to routine mammography is twofold: One,

because mammograms can't detect tumors much smaller than what

a good conventional breast exam can (they often miss tumors that

are quite large, in fact); and Two, because evidence shows that the

extreme compression of a cancerous tumor can actually cause it to

FRAGMENT AND SPREAD…

 

Think I'm crazy on this last point? Read this…

 

 

Opening up a can of " I told you so "

 

To all those out there — doctors, lawyers, butchers, bakers or

candlestick makers — who think I'm off my rocker for believing

that to disturb a cancerous breast tumor by compression is to cause

it to spread, I offer this recent item from Reuters Health…

 

A recent study of 663 cancerous women published in the Archives

of Surgery reveals that those subjects whose cancerous breast

tumors were needle biopsied — in other words, intentionally

ruptured for diagnostic purposes — were 50% more likely to

subsequently develop cancer of the lymphatic nodes located under

the armpit than women whose tumors were removed outright (also

not something I'd always recommend, but that's another story).

 

For those in the back row (or those with their fingers in their ears,

like mammographers), I'll shout: That's TWICE AS LIKELY to

develop lymphatic cancer after disruption of the cancerous tumor.

 

Now, I ask my critics, in light of this startling (but not to me)

finding, is it really so unreasonable for me to maintain that extreme

compression of the breast might possibly cause cancerous growths

to release malignant cells into nearby tissues that might otherwise

have remained contained in a tumor until such time as detection

and treatment could occur?

 

Let me ask another question: Does this sound unreasonable to

YOU?

 

 

Always reasonable, and always " rupturing " the mainstream's

myths,

 

William Campbell Douglass II, MD