The Data Behind the New Mammogram Recommendations – Explained

(NaturalNews) Several years ago, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF) issued an updated set of recommendations about mammogram screenings, suggesting which and how often women should get them. Since the last time the group issued its recommendations in 2002, new study data emerged that has led to a few changes. Its new guidelines, suggesting that women over 40 only need a mammogram every two years, has led to a firestorm of criticism from professional and advocacy groups as well as politicians. The American College of Radiology and the American Cancer Society were quick to condemn the new findings, ones that PSTF has explained made the best sense based on current published data. The group consulted the Evidence-Based Practice Center at the Oregon Health and Science University for all current, relevant information about breast cancer screenings and arrived at what it says is a well-informed conclusion concerning routine screenings for older women. Dr. Heidi Nelson, the lead researcher at the university who compiled the information for the …

Mammograms May Boost Cancer Risk in High-Risk Women

November 30, 2009 USA Today by Liz Szabo Women across the USA have been shocked and angered by new advice to get fewer mammograms. Yet experts have been debating the risks of mammograms and other cancer screenings for more than a decade. There’s growing evidence that cancer screenings aren’t always helpful — and can sometimes be harmful, say Lisa

Mammograms cause breast cancer, groundbreaking new research declares

(NaturalNews) Ever since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force took a look, finally, at the scientific evidence and announced new recommendations earlier this month for routine mammograms — specifically that women under 50 should avoid them and women over 50 should only get them every other year — the reactions from many women, doctors and the mainstream media have reached the point of near hysteria (http://www.naturalnews.com/027558_mammograms_cancer_industry.html). Not getting annual mammograms, some say, means countless women will receive a virtual death sentence because their breast tumors won’t be discovered. But what is rarely discussed about mammograms is this: the tests could actually be causing many cases of breast cancer. In fact, a new study just presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), concludes the low-dose radiation from annual mammography screening significantly increases breast cancer risk in women with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast cancer . This is particularly worrisome because women who are at high risk for breast…

Cancer industry abandons science to keep pushing mammograms that harm women

(NaturalNews) The cancer industry has blatantly abandoned science these past two weeks by insisting women under 50 should receive annual mammograms even though the industry’s own scientific task force concluded that such screenings result in too many false positives. Essentially, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force took a good, hard look at the science and concluded that mammograms harm far more women than they help (for women under 50, anyway). But when they announced the new recommendations that women under 50 should avoid mammograms — and women over 50 should only get them every other year — the cancer industry cried foul. Radiologists, oncologists, Big Pharma pill-pushers and cancer industry non-profits all banded together to declare, “We are abandoning the science! We want more mammograms for more women, science be damned!” Of course, they all still claim to be “scientific,” but what they really do is selectively cherry-pick which bits and pieces of the scientific evidence they choose to adhere to. And when it comes to these new mammogram recommendations, they’ve decided to simply abandon the science and keep pushing more …

Cancer Screening is Essentially Useless; Experts Finally Begin Questioning Sanity of "Routine Screening"

(NaturalNews) Cancer experts are expressing increasing concern over the explosion of campaigns urging people to get regularly screened for a wide variety of cancers, warning that such programs may do more harm than good. “It is a real problem,” said Otis W. Brawley of the American Cancer Society. “They are doing things that might actually harm the people they want to help.” Brawley made his comments about supporters of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s bill that would mandate an education program to promote breast cancer self-screening among young women. But the comments could just as easily apply to supporters of the American Urological Association’s ad campaign urging prostate cancer screening, or the Light of Life Foundation’s ads promoting screening for thyroid cancer. There are now campaigns to promote regular screening for nearly every variety of cancer, based on the widespread popular belief that early detection of cancer is important in saving lives. Yet experts note that for the…