July 9th, msn.com had a report on a study done in Copehagen at the Nordic Cochrane Centre, analyzing breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programs for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden.
The authors found that overall, one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn't actually need to be treated.
Their report stated "Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients," "or the cancer will grow so slowly that the patient will die of other causes before it produces symptoms, or it may remain dormant over the years or even shrink." And "Experts said overtreatment occurs wherever there is widespread cancer screening, including the U.S."
Because doctors have no idea whether the cancer will be lethal or harmless, they tend to treat all patients diagnosed with a tumor. But cancer treatment, using powerful drugs, radiotherapy or surgery, causes harm.
Britain was smart enough, and possibly humanitarian enough, to stop using their breast cancer screening pamphlet, when critics complained that it did not explain the overtreatment problem.
The article on msn.com added this quote:, "Mammography is one of medicine's 'close calls,' ... where different people in the same situation might reasonably make different choices," wrote H. Gilbert Welch of VA Outcomes Group and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Research, in an accompanying editorial in the BMJ. "Mammography undoubtedly helps some women but hurts others."
And, this from Canada:
Marianne Tonnelier of Quebec filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all women diagnosed with breast cancer in Quebec who tested negative for the biological marker that would lead to a prescription of Herceptin. Her concern is that women were misdiagnosed via lab tests, and so, missed out on "appropriate treatment" (my quotation marks). The article cites a government study where breast tissue samples were tested in a reliable lab, and then the samples were sent out to other testing centers:
- Fifteen to 20 per cent of the hormone receptor tests got the wrong result.
- Thirty per cent of tests looking for the HER2 protein were wrong. (The test is used to determine which chemotherapy treatment is best.)
Unfortunately, the government's response is to re-test some breast cancer patients "to ensure they're getting the correct treatment."
Lately, a US study was published showing that 25% of life-threatening test results never got relayed to the patient (which may be a good thing, in actuality.....but it shows how much our medical system is unable to meet the needs of the people).
Tip of the iceberg here....testing is not accurate, overtreatment happens, psychological harm is done. Instead of stepping back and taking a clear look at cancer, applying the biological laws, officials just keep throwing more fuel onto the fire, and when it gets big and hot enough, they take squirt guns to try to put it out. Our medical system is lost, run by business concerns mostly, and does not prevent ill health, it only identifies it and then makes people more sick via their treatment options.
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