American Cancer Society Reverses Its Strong Position on Mammograms and PSA Testi

[Guest guest]

The American Cancer Society Reverses Its Strong Position on Mammograms and

PSA Testing

_http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2009nl/oct/acs.htm_

(http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2009nl/oct/acs.htm)

 

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society

told the New York Times on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 , “We don't want

people

to panic, but I'm admitting that American medicine has overpromised when

it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated.†1

 

 

How does your personal physician communicate confidence and comfort to you

now? “I am sorry I recommended a mammogram that resulted in an unnecessary

amputation of your breast?†How consoling do these words feel, “It is a

shame you haven’t had an erection in the past 10 years due to the PSA test I

insisted you get, that led to debilitating prostate treatments—I hope you

and your wife understand I was just following orders from the American

Cancer Society?†Tens of millions of women and men have been irreparably

damaged

by the universal and enthusiastic recommendations for “early detection

programs,†also known as “screening,†from their personal physicians,

neighborhood breast and prostate clinics, community hospitals, national medical

associations and medical societies over the past four decades. Now, all that

the faithful patients get is a timid apology from the American Cancer

Society, evoked by an article in the October 21, 2009 issue of Journal of the

American Medical Association, titled “Rethinking Screening for Breast Cancer

and Prostate Cancer.†2 Since, in my opinion, this admission of guilt is

insufficient, what would be fair retribution for the harms done?

 

 

Adequate scientific evidence to stop mass screening programs has been

readily available to your personal doctor for more than three decades. A flick

of the “on†button of his or her computer, and a ten-minute search at the

National Library of Medicine (_www.pubmed.gov_ (http://www.pubmed.gov) ) wou

ld have revealed the truth. In 1976 Pietro M. Gullino presented his

findings on the natural history of cancer, showing early detection is really

late

detection, at the Conference on Breast Cancer: A Report to the Profession,

sponsored by the White House, the National Cancer Institute, and the

American Cancer Society. 3 He explained: “ If the time required for a tumor

to

double its diameter during a known period of time is taken as a measure of

growth rate, one can calculate by extrapolation that two-thirds of the

duration of a breast cancer remains undetectable by the patient or physician.

Long before a breast carcinoma can be detected by present technology,

metastatic spread may occur and does in most cases.†This report was

subsequently

published in the journal representing the American Cancer Society (Cancer).

3

 

 

In more familiar words, Dr. Gullino and many other researchers have

clearly told everyone listening: mammography, breast self examination, PSA and

digital rectal exam are really late detection methods and cannot be expected

to save lives by “catching cancer before it spreads.†Unfortunately, there

is no profit in telling this truth. So, 386,560 people in the US are

diagnosed annually with breast cancer (194,280) and prostate cancer (192,280);

many of them through screening. 2

 

 

Cancer Mongering—the Most Successful of All Medical Enterprises

[DIAGRAM]

 

 

Cancer-screening businesses using two modern technologies—the mammogram

and the blood test, prostate specific antigen (PSA)—have captured more

customers than all other efforts combined. Campaigns have been so effective that

about 75 percent of men have had a routine PSA test and about 70 percent of

women older than 40 report they have had a recent mammogram. 2 More than

$20 billion is spent annually on screening for these two diseases. 2

 

There are two customary ways a doctor-patient relationship is established.

The traditional means is that you become ill and you seek out the advice

of a doctor. In this case you initiate the relationship. The worth of the

evidence supporting the doctor’s treatment does not need to be very solid.

Your doctor is acting in his or her professional capacity to offer you the

best available remedies without any real guarantee of the outcome. Remember,

you asked for the help.

 

 

The second means of establishing a doctor-patient relationship became

common with the introduction of programs looking for “early†cancer

(screening). In this scenario the doctor comes looking for you. Life is

good—you are

enjoying your family, hobbies, and work. Then a knock sounds at your front

door by way of a radio, TV, or magazine advertisement. Just as likely,

during an office visit for an unrelated issue, such as a virus cold, your

doctor

admonishes you for failing to have your annual mammogram or PSA test.

Through screening programs millions of people have become patients. When the

doctor turns unsuspecting men and women into customers then the evidence that

the outcome of this campaign will be far “more good than harm†must be

unquestionable.

 

 

On October 21, 2009 the public was told by the American Cancer Society

that this has not been the case for breast and prostate screening. Why now?

The evidence has not changed—the only change is that now a few more people

are willing to tell the truth. Why the delay? Annually, there is $20 billion

at stake for screening alone and hundreds of billions more for the tests and

treatments that follow. The ivory towers of your town’s cancer centers

have been built from the blood of men and women subjected to harmful screening

programs.

 

 

Otis Brawley, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society

 

Dr. Brawley is a practicing oncologist, Chief Medical Officer of the

American Cancer Society, professor of hematology, oncology, and medicine at the

Emory University School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology at the

Emory Rollins School of Public Health. 4

 

 

About himself he says, “I have never had a PSA and do not desire one.†5

He compares prostate screening to the Tuskegee Experiment—research on the

natural progression of untreated syphilis performed on black male patients

between 1932 and 1972. 5 This study caused, as it should have, serious

mistrust by the black community toward public health efforts in the United

States . Currently black males are heavily targeted for prostate cancer

screening and treatments.

 

 

Dr Brawley has known about the questionable benefits of screening for more

than a decade. Regarding mammography, his words in the Hematology/Oncology

Clinics of North America were, “There has been considerable debate about

the benefit:harm ratio of mammography screening for women below the age of

50 years, and about what proportion of the observed benefit arises from

screening that occurs after these women have entered their 50s.†6 He wrote in

the journal Cancer (published on behalf of the American Cancer Society), “

The benefits of screening and early detection, although theoretically

possible, are yet unknown, whereas the risks and harms of screening and

resultant

treatment are definite.†7 He continued, “Although it (screening) may

truly cure a few men who need to be cured, this benefit may be achieved at the

cost of causing a large number of men with prostate carcinoma to undergo

unnecessary treatment and resultant morbidity (illness).†7

 

 

In 1985, 24 Years Ago, I Explained Why Early Detection Cannot Possibly

Work

 

 

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