Ask A Cancer Survivor

The Shocking Truth about Mammogram Screenings

Yesterday I posted my thoughts about the pharmaceutical companies using a “profit vs. legal expense” model instead of a “benefit vs. product risk” model. I disagreed with the pharmaceutical companies’ explanation that the high cost of their products was to pay for medical research. I said the high cost is because of the billions of dollars they spend on advertising and their massive legal expenses.

Today I want to point out that other professional services are also money driven more than patient driven. Mammography is totally money driven. Mammography screenings have been proven to be ineffective and pose risks.

An alternative solution would be clinical breast examination (CBE). These are usually performed by a specially trained nurse and according to the International Journal of Health Services, are every bit as effective as a mammography. The clinical breast examination is less expensive and at least as effective. The CBE also poses fewer risks. Monthly breast self-examination (BSE) should be a regular routine for all women. According to the American Cancer Society, most breast cancers, about 90%, are discovered by the woman herself.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and American Cancer Society (ACS)- mammography does not detect cancer until it has been present for about eight years.

Falsely Positive Mammograms often mistakenly diagnoses cancer. These false positives lead to over diagnosis and that results in over treatment. We live in litigious society. These false positives and inaccurate diagnoses lead to lawsuits.

Why are mammogram screenings expensive? Maybe for two of the same reasons that prescription medications are so expensive, the high cost of lawyers and lobbyists. Here is what leads me to that conclusion. In January 1997 the National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference recommended against pre-menopausal screening. The National Cancer Institute accepted this recommendation. Now here come the politicians. Congress pressured the NCI and they reversed their decision three months later in favor of pre-menopausal screening.

So now congress (politicians) is deciding on medical treatments. Do you think lobbyist had any thing to do with this? Did you know that the United States is the only nation that routinely screens pre-menopausal women by mammography? Did you also know the occurrence of breast cancer in the USA exceeds that of other countries?