The Truth About Mammography 
The dark side of mammography
Everything you wanted to know about your mammogram without doctor dares to learn ...
Like every year at the same time - and without regard to the gradual depletion of our financial health insurance - that is left for the promotion of mammography. To hear the health authorities - relayed by the press and apparently the majority of the medical profession - the survival of most "women we love" [1] depend on this screening, it should be further intensified.
And, according to a dynamic of its own drive to all major religious causes, we find - for example on The Post - The claim of the new converts who are still demanding more, this time directed at younger women, presented in this case as victims of a shocking oversight. A bit like in 1994-95, when the federation of parents CIPF thundered with all his prestige to denounce secular stinginess of Douste-Blazy had miserably limited to classes of sixth obvious benefits of vaccination against hepatitis B: atmosphere [2] ... When will mammography teen?
Criteria intrinsic credibility accordance with the methodology that visitors to this site begin to know, try to identify some intrinsic criteria which, even in a debate hypertechnique give the citizen the basic facts, easily verifiable by everyone and enabling it to regain some background information.
• According Roselyne Bachelot interviewed by Elle (08/10/10), "Breast cancer is one of my fights in public health. Early detection improves prognosis, facilitates the management and increases the chance of cure." Given the credibility of the Lady on assessment and, more generally, it belongs to the government regarding conflict of interest, we can already consider [3].
• Some 70 articles on the subject and obtained by tapping quickly on Google Actualitésen dated 10/10/2010, I found one referring to the drawbacks potential of such a screening. However, it is unusual for a social issue of interest, the dissenting opinions do not count for less than 2% of the vote. Even as crude hoaxes that H1N1, the percentage of citizens have fallen into the trap of promoting vaccination was around 10%: you say ...
• Even if (you wonder why), most of the relevant literature on the subject is in English, just anyone to enter - in French - on any search engine " Mammography and overdiagnosis "or" breast cancer and overdiagnosis "to see that things are far from being obvious. Why the official promotion of mammography does she no response to uncertainty as patent?
• For more than a year the visitors of this site have been initiated into the work of the Cochrane Foundation, which aims to take stock of available data on treatments or medical strategies. It turns out that the issue of mammography, the available data are so incompatible with the promotion of health authorities that, in an initiative unique to my knowledge, the review authors were keen to disseminate relevant in several languages a summary for use by laymen - which can be found attached to the French version. There is no need of having the faculty of medicine to show that the available evidence is hardly compatible with the promo without distinction of our minister of health ... It will include the authors ask exactly the question of the preceding paragraph, namely: how is it that it is so difficult for women covered by the current campaigns to be at least informed when the reserves yet many that can maintain in respect of screening and its presumed benefits?
• Even if we read a little English to go check the source [4], a recent article in the Los Angeles Times (04/10/10) identifies Astra Zeneca, one of the leading manufacturers of cancer (and currently sixth in global pharmaceutical company sales), behind the screening campaigns: interesting mix of genres, indeed ...
A little arithmetic
Designed to facilitate the representation of the player, the figures given below are theoretical, but can be made the basic problem (there are other more subtle issues, but it is important to prioritize the importance).
Imagine that historically (before any mammography procedure), the average age for diagnosis of breast cancer is 60 years old and still in average survival time after the diagnosis is 8 years ( is, therefore, death at an average age of 68 years).
Now, imagine that, through screening, diagnosis is advanced by three years, and is made on average at age 57.
• Even if this screening does not result in any benefit in terms of survival (age of death still 68 years) was mechanically increased the survival time of patients, since it is past 8 years (68 years - 60 years) to 11 years (68 years - 57 years) . A shot in the water? Not quite: 57 to 60 years, there has still lost 3 years of normal life and just send each (e) experience of the thing to compare three years of surgery / radiotherapy / chemotherapy in three years sweet unconsciousness - for a strictly no benefit in terms of life expectancy.
• Even better: imagine that as a result of such adverse effects of medical care "vigorous", the life expectancy of women screened and is shortened, and that they die, for example, the average age of 66 years. The zealots of testing - the same ones who confuse 94 million doses of vaccine useful with less than 10 million used [5] - can always argue that life expectancy after diagnosis increased from 8 to 9 years (66 years - 57 years ): The reality is that over time the "historic" pre-mammography where women with average die 68 years, they will now have an objective loss of hope life of two years ... All this, again, the price of suffering known cancer treatment ...
It has already taken a big step when these dear women we all love so as to give us a duty to urge routine screening have understood this reality simple arithmetic ...
Additional questions
In medicine, we often forget, the 100% does not exist: just as there is no drug is 100% effective, there is no of screening 100% reliable.
• With mammography, It will therefore be false negatives, ie women actually cancerous, not diagnosed as such and which, starting again with the false reinsurance mammography "normal" will appear soon to see again when this time clinical signs of disease . So that, paradoxically, the screening will be among them, contributed to delaying the diagnosis and treatment, which is all the more regrettable that the most explosive tumors - those most likely to win quickly a woman - are precisely those that can perfectly occur in the interval between mammograms [6].
• More importantly, there will be false positives, ie women who will end up with a diagnosis of cancer when they have none. Therefore, they will be embedded in a medicalization will be able to go, as appropriate, from simple biopsy (with all the anguish inherent) to surgery and treatment - with all its iatrogenic effects. The Cochrane review authors mentioned believe that a woman whose life expectancy will be extended (they do not say how much) by mammography, two hundred women will be victims of a false alarm and must go through additional tests (biopsie. ..) unnecessary anxiety and costly, while ten will not even get to see corrected this error in diagnosis and will be submitted - without any justification - to the joys known decaying surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy: it Just think of the friends in the position to represent the table ...
addition and certainly they can be cancerous, many breast tumors are developing extremely slow: so slow they would have remained silent throughout the life of affected women [6], some authors hesitate not to argue that some tumors may even spontaneously regress [7]. In other words, women will suffer the martyrdom of a cancer treatment for tumors in which they would never have heard all their lives.
other hand and although I have not seen any studies on this subject is a point that sometimes made me conscientious surgeons that certain tumors, a priori sensitive and as such assumed not pose a therapeutic problem appears to "burn" once they were made, as if the surgery had exacerbated the potential for exacerbation and dissemination: the situation is still regrettable if the tiny tumors in question were those that would have remained hidden had we not been teasing them with blows of the knife ... This, we repeat, simple individual comments, but could at least justify studies to examine the potential iatrogenic risk of surgery.
Finally, it is useful to recall that, in addition to its obvious disadvantages in terms of false positive mammograms - like any medical procedure - would deserve to see better evaluated its direct adverse effects: in addition to discomfort or pain (reported by many women), one can only wonder about the cumulative effects of repeated irradiation.
Summary
Under the influence of what can only be called a promotion rather systematically misleading women - especially those we love ... - Were taken to suggest that mammographic detection of a malignant tumor would "save lives". It is essentially false.
• In a given person, even if the cancer is real, the benefit of mammographic detection is marginal (compared to what would have happened if the cancer was detected clinically), if not infinitesimal: the most comprehensive reviews available on the subject (cf. PJ) estimates that only one woman in 2000 tested for ten years to escape death from cancer relative to those who have been out fishing rather than the radiologist. She did not say at all that the lucky winner will live longer and even specifies that no serious study can retain a benefit of screening in terms of overall survival: in other words, the lucky lady will die like the others - maybe even complications cancer treatment [8], or multiplication of mammograms triggered by the initial diagnosis of cancer ...
• For a lucky winner in 2000 women followed for 10 years, there will be ten times more miserable to be identified and treated incorrectly as cancer - and which, if any, will die of their cancer treatment .. . To put it another way: among all women who believe and claim that mammography "saved their life," the vast majority has no breast cancer and mammography them actually wasted life ... • Relatively
to his misfortune, to be considered almost as anecdotal the 200 women who are just terrified for a few weeks to several months until they are confirmed they have nothing in - after more or less traumatic biopsies and other tests delicious (and the If desired, then multiply the rate of mammograms "given the warning "...).
A who benefit from it?
• Clearly, it already enjoys in the lobby of radiologists - which is known to be powerful enough to us to make our country all-round champion of ultrasounds obstetric - a profit which is still awaiting the slightest proof.
• It also benefits the contemporary Narcissus [9], only too happy to reinforce his inability to think Being and tragic life in the illusion that we can "save his life" upon appointment, subject technical procedure reimbursed by the community ...
• This benefits, should be stressed, manufacturers of cancer drugs - both directly and indirectly. O Direct
, as we have seen, by multiplying the number of women unnecessarily exposed to long-term treatment, multiple and expensive.
o Indirectly, maintaining - again from public funds (through screening campaigns overly publicized, reinforced by patients' associations handled) - a general climate of fear that erodes the requirement of informed consent must yet to turn citizens into customers too docile to "cancer" innovative "whose superiority over older products and is cheaper, too, to show [10]. This benefits
• Finally, the "responsible" policies (pardon the oxymoron ...) and, again, in two ways.
o maintaining citizens through propaganda centered on pathologies very emotionally connoted (breast, prostate), in the sweet illusion that ensures their health, when - constantly aggravated by the irresponsibility of Parliamentarians and health administration - drug regulation is accelerating the on the drug marketing at best unnecessary and often overly toxic.
o diverting attention through the exhortation to individual responsibility, real public health problems which, in turn, report a much more political than personal initiative. To keep to that this related example: why breast cancer incidence has constantly increased over the decades? Who has effective means of governing the exposure of citizens to exogenous hormones, radiation, chemical pollutants and countless of which there are good reasons to think they could play a role in this modern epidemic?
Conclusion
At this stage of the information, it is unnecessary to go into finer detail assessments or controversy, I never argued, for example that assessments Cochrane were all that compelling or colleagues who think that mammography may be useful are necessarily thieves.
But even with vaccines against influenza [11] (and even more so given the potentially dire consequences iatrogenic campaigns mammography), the justification of this article is based on a clear statement already made by others [12] and it is hard to dispute: there is a shocking contrast between the evidence of a benefit to public health - which are nonexistent - and the immorality of the means used by health authorities, medical personnel or certain associations to convince people otherwise.
Dr. Marc Girard
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[1] "Stand up for the women you love," says a campaign spot.
[2] The laity are fanatical about the superiority they are formidable in good faith when they sacrifice to the fanaticism ...
[3] It is still possible to navigate with a compass that always points south: you just have to know ...
[4] Je traduis rapidement à destination des francophones obstinés : "If you look into their funding sources, you’ll often find a pharmaceutical company or device maker who stands to benefit from an expansion in the number of people with the condition." Welch calls AstraZeneca’s sponsorship of the awareness month "a huge conflict of interest," since encouraging women to get screened will invariably increase the number of breast cancer diagnoses and thus the market for their breast cancer drugs Arimidex, Faslodex, Nolvadex and Zoladex ("Si vous en venez aux sources de financement, vous trouverez souvent une firme pharmaceutique ou un fabricant de dispositif médical, qui ont tout à gagner d’une augmentation des gens concernés by the disease. "Welch [one of the experts interviewed by the newspaper] is sponsoring the month of information by Astra Zeneca for" a huge conflict of interest ", since that encouraging women to get tested will inevitably increase the number of breast cancers diagnosed and, thereby expanding the market for cancer of the firm, such as Arimidex, Faslodex, Nolvadex and Zoladex).
[5] When it is not their right with their left ...
[ 6] Esserman, L., Y. Shieh, and I. Thompson, Rethinking screening for breast cancer and prostate cancer. JAMA, 2009. 302 (15): p. 1685-92.
[7] Zahl, P.-H ., J. Maehlen, and HG Welch, The Natural History of Invasive Breast Cancers Detected by Mammography Screening. Arch Intern Med, 2008. 168 (21): p. 2311-2316.
[8] Black WC, Haggstrom DA, and HG Welch, All-cause Mortality in randomized trials of cancer screening. J Natl Cancer Inst, 2002. 94 (3): p. 167-73
[9] Lasch, C. The culture of narcissism. 1979: Flammarion (Champs trials).
[10] Garattini, S. and V. Bertele, Efficacy, safety, and cost of new anticancer drugs. BMJ, 2002. 325 (7358): p. 269-71.
[11] Compared to which, no offense to some users, I perfectly understand the difference between Efficacy and Effectiveness as meanings Cochrane reviews ...
[12] "The information provided by associations and governmental organizations is poor and severely biased in favor of screening. Few websites meet acceptable standards of informed consent in (...)". Jorgensen, KJ and Gotzsche PC, Presentation on websites of possible Benefits and Harms from screening for breast cancer: cross sectional study. BMJ, 2004. 328 (7432): p. 148
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--------------------------------------- Attachment to see Emergency:
Brochure Cochrane
... must pass Knowledge and Truth ... ...
Truth always ends up Know ...
DJAMELITO
(Published by Authority, "My expertise is available to the public." Dr. Marc Girard)
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