Breast Cancer: The Most Important of All the Cancers (?)

Amy – what the HELL are you doing on a feminist website?

Nice girls, in this breast cancer racket, finish last. The organizations you mention, like many, were probably good at the beginning, but have morphed into monsters.

Please go peddle your pink.

My daughter just had a 10 sample core biopsy taken. 10. That’s far too many. At that number, an excisional bx should have been ordered. You can’t play nice in any of this. On the other hand, you stay here, and I’ll keep looking for a truly feminist bc website.

Unfortunately womens’ health care is very political and emotive, so a sense of balance has been lost. Women worry enormously about cervical cancer, but not mouth cancer, but they occur in roughly the same numbers. Why? We’ve been programmed to fear cervical cancer and not mouth cancer. Of course, both cancers are rare – the dangerous thing is the misinformation that is fed to women, so Govt-set targets can be achieved for expensive screening programs. This means many women now fear their own bodies, have been completely misled over the real threats to their lives, make bad decisions that can have seriously negative outcomes including allowing over-screening and over-treatment.
Many women also need the (often false) reassurance they get from cervical and breast screening. How many women worry about bowel or lung cancer? Google anything to do with cervical and breast cancer screening and you’ll find forums, articles, awareness months, on and on…the rest fight for attention even though they kill FAR more women.

I also believe the womens’ groups who pushed hard for cancer screening, are now part of the problem – new oppressors. Cancer screening is supposed to be an offer, legally and ethically, our informed consent is required, (we see how that works in prostate cancer screening) yet from the start, these programs were basically ORDERS – “you SHOULD”, “you MUST”…
Yet another group exercising control over women, making decisions for them and accepting risk on their behalf. Paternalism in yet another form….more people directing us, “for our own good”.
All highly disrespectful…

We see misinformation, fudged statistics to scare and mislead, scare campaigns, unethical conduct including coercion (screening is “required” for the Pill or HRT or any sort of medical care in the States & Canada)) psychologists helping to shape programs to make women feel guilty or reckless or immature if they decline screening etc.
IMO, men are not treated in this way. Risk information came out very quickly for prostate screening and doctors were reminded to obtain informed consent.

You rarely even see an acknowledgment that women are entitled to refuse screening. Of all the screening tests, you are least likely to benefit from pap testing and most likely to be harmed – yet the most pressure is reserved for this test. Govts have committed millions and must show a result, even if that means biopsies for almost every woman at some stage. The lifetime risk of cervical cancer is 0.65% – one third to a half of women who get cancer have had a recent false negative or series of them – in the States, 95% of women will be referred at some stage for colposcopy and usually some sort of biopsy, in Australia – it’s 77%, the UK – 65%
Normally high over-detection would rule out a test for mass screening purposes and especially for a rare cancer – you harm many, to possibly help a few.

Of course, we’ll never “really” know whether any woman is helped by testing – astonishingly, this mass testing was started without controlled trials – any decrease in the death rate is grabbed as evidence that screening is working – but this cancer was in decline before screening started and we know other factors are relevant – better condoms, fewer women smoking, more hysterectomies and Dr Gilbert Welch in “Over-diagnosis” suggests better hygiene and less sexually transmitted disease. Stomach cancer for example has also declined over the years with no screening test – probably as a result of better diet.
We do know for sure if any women are helped, the numbers are small – no more than 0.45%

IMO, the rights and health of a small minority do not outweigh the rights and health of the vast majority of women who’d never have an issue with this cancer, but for screening.
I’m constantly staggered by the dishonesty in cervical and breast cancer screening – how is it acceptable to treat women in this way?
The risks of breast and cervical screening are suppressed (deliberately), the benefits of the tests are exaggerated and the threat of the cancer is overstated – women are IMO, processed to achieve Govt set targets with no respect for informed consent. Many women are left worse off…

Our doctors are even paid to reach screening targets for pap tests – undisclosed to women – this is IMO, a potential conflict of interest. If women get any information at all, it usually comes from their GP, yet that GP is being rewarded behind the woman’s back to reach a screening target. No wonder most women are simply told they must or should screen – something totally inappropriate for something like cancer screening.

I think the obsession with cervical cancer is out of all proportion to the risk and breast cancer also steels the limelight. Breast cancer is fairly common, but not as common as the screening authorities would have you believe – risk varies with your age group – the 1 in 8 figure that was released by Breast Screen UK is very misleading and might be right for a group of elderly women. Never accept the statistics released by pro-screening groups – also, do your own reading, never rely on their “facts” which are carefully worded to mislead you.

I made an informed decision, as a low risk woman, not to have cervical screening more then 25 years ago and more recently rejected mammograms. I believe cancer screening is an enormous threat to our health and quality of life – we need to protect our healthy bodies and only accept tests that pass our risk v benefit assessment and are in OUR best interests.
I’m not anti-screening, but I believe the entire area needs major change – balanced information must be provided to women and informed consent must be respected – the final decision to screen or not, to screen later or less often should rest with the woman. A high risk woman might want cervical screening, but the facts will also assist her to minimize risk – simply adopting the Finnish program will reduce the risk of false positives from 95% down to 35%-55%…the Finns have the lowest rates of cervical cancer in the world and refer the fewest women (fewer false positives).
Also, decision aids should be provided to assist women – Dr Alexandra Barrett has produced an aid for women aged 40-49 considering a mammogram. (it’s online) also, the Nordic Cochrane Institute have produced a great summary of the, “Risks and benefits of mammograms” – at their website.
Sadly, few women ever see this information….
I think it’s great that we’re finally having these discussions – for decades we were all in the dark and had no idea of the actual benefits and risks of testing. Finally, that’s changing….