Breast Mammograms ureliable, and can cause cancer



Time and again, studies published in prestigious medical journals have shown that mammography isn't all it's cracked up to be. The federal task force indicated that this was their impression as well; hence the shift in their recommendation in 2009. For example:

-- Mammograms miss up to a third or more of all breast cancers, as reported by Medscape, depending on the composition of your breast tissue and the type of cancer.

-- Mammography and its subsequent tests, such as MRIs and stereotactic biopsies, may actually cause cancer.

-- False positives (a diagnosis of cancer when it turns out to be non-cancerous) are notorious in the industry, causing women needless anxiety, pain and, often, invasive and disfiguring surgical procedures. This is the MAJOR danger of mammography, as it radically increases the number of women who will be misdiagnosed and plugged into a system designed to cut, poison, and burn them unnecessarily without addressing the underlying reasons of what caused the cancer.

-- CAD computer software used as an aid to locate suspicious areas in mammograms has been shown to be ineffectual for improving breast cancer detection, and increases your risk of getting a "false positive" result.

The final insult to injury is the latest in a long row of blows against the cancer detection industry. In the featured study above, 1.6 million mammograms from 90 radiology facilities across the US were analyzed. It was determined that the use of computer assisted software, which should be helpful in the detection of breast cancer, was not helpful after all.

As reported by CNN:

"The detection rate for noninvasive breast abnormalities improved at radiology facilities that adopted CAD technology, but, crucially, the rate did not improve for invasive breast cancers, the dangerous type that invade healthy tissue in the breast or other parts of the body. Moreover, in facilities that began using CAD the percentage of women with abnormal mammograms who were accurately diagnosed (a measure known as "positive predictive value") dropped, from 4.3% to 3.6%. Rates of false-positives and "recalls" -- being called back for further testing -- increased slightly after facilities implemented CAD."

These results echo those from a study published in 2007, which also concluded that:

"The use of computer-aided detection is associated with reduced accuracy of interpretation of screening mammograms. The increased rate of biopsy with the use of computer-aided detection is not clearly associated with improved detection of invasive breast cancer."

Mammography Is a Source of Radiation-Induced Damage

Another recent study further fuels concerns about the use of mammography, especially in women predisposed to breast cancer, and strengthens the recommendation to avoid mammograms if you're under the age of 50. The study assessed the radiation-induced DNA damage in epithelial breast cells in women with high- and low risk of breast cancer. The results showed that women with a family history of cancer, placing them at high risk, were at significantly greater risk to suffer irreparable double-strand DNA breaks from mammography, and the effect was exacerbated with dose repetition. 

The authors concluded that:

"This study highlights the existence of double-strand breaks induced by mammography and revealed by ?H2AX assay with two major radiobiological effects occurring: a low-dose effect, and a Low and Repeated Dose (LORD) effect. All these effects were exacerbated in high-risk patients.These findings may lead us to re-evaluate the number of views performed in screening using a single view (oblique) in women whose mammographic benefit has not properly been proved such as the 40-49 and high risk patients."

This isn't the first time scientists have come to the conclusion that using mammography as a tool for early detection and "prevention" of lethal cancer may in fact, in many cases, do far more harm than good. Yet you don't see major warning about the risks in the media, nor do any mammography centers provide information on these risks, so the women are not given full disclosure, making it impossible for them to give any type of valid informed consent for this procedure.

According to the Cancer Prevention Coalition, radiation from routine mammography poses a significant cumulative risk (over time) of causing breast cancer. And according to the BreastCancerFund.org, lower-energy X-rays provided by mammography result in substantially greater damage to DNA than would be predicted, and suggests that risk of breast cancer caused by exposure to mammography radiation may be greatly underestimated.

Dr. Samuel Epstein, probably the leading scientist in the world who truly understands this issue, has been warning people for years about the dangers of mammography, explains:

"The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade's screening..."

"The high sensitivity of the breast, especially in young women, to radiation-induced cancer was known by 1970. Nevertheless, the establishment then screened some 300,000 women with X-ray dosages so high as to increase breast cancer risk by up to 20 percent in women aged 40 to 50 who were mammogramed annually."

Internet site reference: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/16/even-computer-technology-cant-help-mammograms.aspx?e_cid=20111016_SNL_Art_1

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