[Mammography]
Mammograms offer no health benefits whatsoever, doctors
conclude
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 by:
David Gutierrez |
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." |