In addition to the important problems which Jane lists, there is the fact that the medical industry is a closed, authoritarian system—a system which is largely impervious to public scrutiny and criticism for that reason.  There is no reason to trust it.  Learn what you can about health and make your own decisions.

For years, women have been told to do self-exams, as well as mammograms. Now, suddenly, we’ve got NOTHING, if this panel’s recommendations are adopted by insurers and MDs.

When public policy makes a sudden 180, we’ve got a right to be upset. Yet we’re all too eager to turn medical recommendations into absolutes, in this country. As Goodman shows, the mammogram issue has been around for quite a while, and some of us opted out of the annual exam until later in life. Similarly, studies now indicate that other “lifesaving” medical interventions, such as angioplasty, may not be helpful.

Advice reversals happen all the time, and it’s frustrating for a society that’s invested in getting clear answers to all problems. That’s not how medical science works, however. Perhaps we should rename it medical “arts.”

jane, November 28 at 4:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

You are surprised at the lack of trust in women in a
very misogynistic society??
We all know that doctors and the government are not
only in each others pockets
but that most of them are men. A society that argues
endlessly about outlawing
abortion, and refusing to fill prescriptions for
birth control pills at the same time
covers the cost of viagra by most health insurance
companies.

Hey Jane:
I’m not surprised at all. I remember when “OUR
BODIES, OURSELVES” was a best seller & women fought
back. La leche league encouraged breast feeding &
truth meant something. Think of the out pouring of
emotions when Oprah announced her retirement just 2
days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Let’s
encourage women to stop wasting their lives sitting
in front of the greatest brainwashing tool ever
invented & start helping themselves. A good beginning
would be to wear comfortable shoes, stop consuming
toxic chemicals like alcohol, tobacco, & caffeine.
And for God’s sake stop texting & farding while
driving.

Mammogram Backlash Is About Mistrust
Posted on Nov 25, 2009
By Ellen Goodman

Hey Ellen Goodman:

Now that you’ve looked at mammograms under the
microscope,

it’s time to look through the macroscope. What you’ll
see is

misogyny. Depending on the culture, you’ll find
everything from

blatant slavery, forced clitorectomies, clothing
restrictions, starvation

if sex is refused, &, in the good old USA, where
Mammon rules,

a relentless brainwashing campaign to convince women
that without:

botox, designer vaginas, breast augmentation,
liposuction, various

stomach reduction & other surgical procedures,
happiness will

elude them. However, the most odious, objectionable &
pathogenic

findings will

be the theme that God made lots of mistakes when
woman was

created. Therefore, infant formula is better than
mother’s milk.

C-sections are preferred over vaginal deliveries.
Hospital birthing

is good, home deliveries are bad,  midwives just
can’t compare

to obstetricians, stirrups, episiotomies,induced
labor & scheduled

deliveries. So don’t even think about natural
childbirth or the

Chinese peasants who, for millennia, used gravity to
facilitate

delivery without being cut or drugged, and whose
newborn

didn’t have to be spanked to jump-start breathing, &
who waited

several minutes until the heart/lungs transitioned
from an

amniotic to an air evironment before cutting the
umbilical cord so

the newborn’s brain received optimum oxygen. In fact,
don’t

think at all, just follow MIPIC guidelines & just
“trust us”.

Mammogram Backlash Is About Mistrust
Posted on Nov 25, 2009
By Ellen Goodman

Hey Ellen Goodman:

Now please Google “mammograms cause cancer” & educate
yourself. Then rewrite your article with a new title:

“Mammogram Backlash Is About Money & MIPIC”

MIPIC,MEDICAL INSURANCE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL
CONSPIRACY, wants fear & not facts to determine
decisions. And in your rewrite, please include the
women who had double mammectomies
to stop the pain of uncertainty, and also include how
obesity increases cancer rates.

Ms.Goodman hits the key point, and then ignores it.

The key is ‘trust’.  Ideally, you’d have an independent panel of smart scientists you could trust who could weigh the risks of the radiation exposure in early mammograms versus at what age women typically see tumors develop.

The problem is that in America there is no trust in this area at all.  The government is in the hands of the big corporations, so there’s no trust at all that such a panel wouldn’t be stacked in favor of corporate interests.  Don’t know if it was or not. I just know that very few Americans have any trust that today’s government is acting in their best interests.  In fact, the general fact that can be learned from watching both Democrat and Republican administrations and congresses is that none of these people give a dang about what’s best for the people.

So, of course there’s no trust at all when such a report comes out.  Nor should there be, given all that we’ve seen in the last few decades.

That’s the problem.  That’s the sign that our society and our government are severely broken and damaged.  Too many lies, too many rigged panels, too much bs that makes corporations money.  We’ve seen it all to much.

No one in their right mind would trust a government report these days.  And that’s the problem.

How to fix it? Get money out of politics.  Get back to the point where politicians have to look out for the interests of the citizens in their district.  If we can get back to having a government of the people, by the people and for the people, then maybe we could get to the point where we could trust that a study done by such a government would have the best interests of the people at its heart.  Today .. who know if it does or not?  You certainly can’t just trust that it does.

Mammograms are x-rays.  x-rays are an exposure to radiation.  The general rule about radiation is to keep any exposure as low as reasonably possible.

Exposure to radiation can cause tumors.  When you do a mammogram, you are running the risk that the the exposure to radiation could cause exactly the sort of tumor that is feared.

Sometimes, you can spot a bad argument by taking it to extremes.  So, how about this? If early detection is everything, why don’t we tell every woman to have an annual mammogram from the time they turn 18?

The reason is rather obvious. You’d be giving healthy women with little chance of breast cancer needless doses of radiation. And you’d likely be causing more breast cancers than you prevent through early detection.

Of course, no one is saying that we should start this at 18.  That’s trying to spot a bad argument at an extreme.  But, what the report does appear to be saying is that too many mammograms are done needlessly.  And that this is an unnecessary exposure to radiation.  And that this is not without a cost, and that this exposure to radiation has the potential to cause extra breast cancers. 

I have no idea whether the correct age to start taking annual mammograms is 40 or 50, or 45, or 47 or 42.  But there’s nothing at all wrong with people trying to watch and make sure we aren’t giving too many too early in life.  Because too many early mammograms has the potential to create the cancer that is so feared.

So what do you make of the fact that the report also recommended not teaching women how to self-examine for tumors? Or that this report was transparently an effort to reduce costs for insurance companies, even if women die because of it? Or that my mother would be dead right now if not for the mammogram she had when she was 43?

I guess what I’m trying to say is, the Washington Post can go fuck itself.