Comments on: How To Piss Off Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Lazy Mammogram Guidelines

By: reddirt

reddirt — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:13:56 +0000

While I have no doubt SG has women’s best interest, this is a complex issue.

As a 35 y o female whose mother was diagnosed w/ stage II (prolly IIa) breast CA, I am on the fence & have not gotten a baseline mammogram.

Mammograms are not completely innocuous.
Here’s a layman’s article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/health/research/01cancer.html
& here’s the oncologists’ stance

http://www.ajho.com/mammography-screenings-may-increase-breast-cancer-risk-in-young-high-risk-women/article/159223/

jpw

By: Narniaman

Narniaman — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:31:12 +0000

Let’s look at what the “task force” has admitted to.

They state that for women age 40-49, it is necessary to screen about 1900 women — to save one woman’s from dying of breast cancer.

If you check the census data, you will see that there are about 22 million women in the US between the ages of 40 and 49.

If these women are not screen over the next ten years, one in 1900 will die an unnecessary death from breast cancer.

That works out to — about 25,000 women dead in the prime of their lives — when they could have been cured.

That’s more than the combined death toil from 9/11, the Iraq war I, the Iraq war II, and the Afghanistan war. . . .in fact, it’s about twice as much.

I wonder how much they’re paying the “task force” members for such wise counsel. . . .

By: Dr T

Dr T — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:23:17 +0000

The government looks at the entire group, not the individuals, especially when it is footing the bill. So, if it is not cost effective to screen women 40-50 years old (and it isn’t), the government rightly sees this as an opportunity to save money.

The individual woman sees statistics from the other end, and, from her prospective it may indeed be cost effective to be screened for breast cancer with mammography between 40-50 years old. But then she needs to foot the bill.

Do you all not understand that this is what is going on here?

The more the government has the power to paricipate in these decisions, the more it will make the Socialist choice of the best decision for the largest number of people.

When people speak with their pocketbooks–they speak for themselves.

Waske up people.

By: dalianmoon

dalianmoon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:45:08 +0000

You tell her, Dr. Gupta!
My mom is a breast cancer survivor. She nearly died from it, but here she is, 11 years later. You can never be too cautious when it comes to this stuff.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:22:41 +0000

Hat’s off to Dr. Gupta for pointing out the major hole in the argument. It’s as if the study was conducted by actuarials. It would be nice if we stopped wasting all this money researching a mediocre diagnostic tool and spend some real effort and money in developing a reliable test. Maybe coming up with a test that didn’t require pancaking the breast. We don’t test any other organ/part of the body in this manner. Why then do it to the boob?

By: lchen

lchen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:22:01 +0000

If you read the comments over on jezebel http://jezebel.com/5407384/new-breast-cancer-screening-guidelines-spark-confusion-criticism I think there you can see how the new guidelines can make sense. Like what the ‘years’ gained really mean.

The anxiety is terrible and if we consider what are the actual risks we should reconsider how we approach detection. My cousin is only 24 and during a breast exam found a lump, and even tho the doctor was pretty sure that it was most likely nothing(they mentioned that repeatedly) and could disappear on it’s own, but they still want to do more testing to be sure. She has no health insurance, and all the testing methods would costs a lot of money. Luckily her medicaid came thru and she had a follow up test that turned up nothing. I was anxiety ridden for her too. The culture of panic is harmful. We should approach this very touchy subject with a level head and not just let our emotions get the better of us.