Educate-Yourself.org-Breast Cancer Detection-Trick or Treatment?

Breast Cancer Detection - Trick or Treatment?

[Editor's Note: Our thanks to Chris Gupta <mbgupta@julian.uwo.ca> for forwarding this article]

by Bill Sturgeon <sturgeon@asis.com>
http://www.humguide.com/~humguide/seniornews/issues/9910c.shtml

World cancer expert Samuel Epstein M.D. writes in dismay: "A leading Massachusetts newspaper featured an American Cancer Society (ACS) advertisement that promised early detection (of breast cancer) results in a cure 'nearly one hundred percent of the time.'"

Upon being questioned about this figure by a reporter, an ACS communications director responded: "The ad isn't based on a study. When you make an advertisement, you just say what you can to get women in the door.... You exaggerate a point," Epstein wrote.

On the other side of that door is, of course, a mammogram machine that draws $125 (national average) per patient. Doctors tell you that this mammogram provides the earliest possible cancer warning, so keep getting them. Since the average age of a mammogram-disclosed tumor is seven years, what the doctors must really mean is, let's find that tumor before it has metastasized (spread via multiple and inoperable secondary tumors).

Canadian Study
The Canadian National Breast Cancer Screening Study tracked 50,000 women in their 40s from 1980-1988. Half received periodic mammograms, the rest periodic tactile palpation exams only. The results were shocking and remain controversial: "...the increased risk of death from breast cancer for women undergoing mammography was reported to be a full 36 percent" ...over those who received palpation only.

The director of the study observed: "One potential problem was that surgery, the anesthetic and radiotherapy involved in treating women with breast cancer were interfering with immunity. [As a
result] the initial radiation and surgery to remove tiny breast lumps discovered by mammograms may make secondary cancers elsewhere grow faster.... You may find the cancers earlier (with mammography), but the women are still going to die. Modern treatment does not work for these early cancers."

Mammograms
Earlier (Senior News, October 1997) I wrote of the cumulative health damage done by the mammogram's X-rays. Much more damaging than that is the squashing of a breast in the machine's
vise. A malignant tumor, if flattened in the mammogram machine, may rupture small blood vessels and leak cancer cells to spread elsewhere. (Sam Epstein, The Politics of Cancer Revisited,1998.)

If a mammogram reads positive, the woman can expect to receive a follow-up biopsy. In this procedure the doctor scoops out a sample of the tumor mass and withdraws it for laboratory microscopic examination. This is a problem. When the piece of steel scoops out and withdraws a malignant tissue sample, it can leave cancer cells, or cell clusters, strewn along the withdrawal trail to further spread. Anectodal onconology reports in peer review journals show multiple incidence of this occurring at the site of the needle track.

Trick Numbers
Both the doctors and the ACS medical statisticians will say that they equate survival rate with five symptom-free years following conventional surgery-radiation-chemotherapy treatment. At the end of that time, the patient is declared cured and removed from the statistical data base. But an average five-year-old breast tumor is smaller than a pinhead and undetectable by any accepted means; while the average breast tumor, growing exponentially, takes seven years before a mammogram will disclose it.

My ongoing research leads me to believe that a mammogram and needle biopsy produces
1) surgery, chemo and/or radiation to remove all perceptible evidence of the cancer while
2) spreading imperceptible cancer cells to the lymph and blood systems where they are free to re-establish themselves anywhere they happen to land. There they grow and ultimately reveal themselves, on schedule, seven years later.

Remember, however, the woman was pronounced "cured" after five years. Doctors seldom discuss any connection between the old cancer and a new cancer. If my research is correct, then the allopathic cancer industry has built a five-year blame-proof wall around recurring cancers.

__________________________
Bill Sturgeon of Petrolia is a medical science writer. His e-mail is sturgeon@asis.com. Senior News Editor's note: Each year during nationally observed Breast Cancer Month in October, along with community events to celebrate and mourn cancer "fighters"

(Senior News, October 1995), Senior News has also attempted to bring in alternative thinking about this and other diseases and the medical industry surrounding them. We are grateful to local medical science writer Bill Sturgeon for his continuing contributions.
October 1998: Thermograms, alternative to mammograms.
October 1997: How safe are mammograms? Chart: X-Ray dose scale.
October 1996: Book review: Breast Cancer? Breast Health! by Susun Weed.
October 1995: Editorial, the politics of breast cancer; Booklist for healing cancer.
October 1994: AIDS Quilt comes to HSU.

An additional resource for breast cancer information is Breast Cancer Action, a San Francisco nonprofit working to end the breast cancer epidemic. BCA's web site is http://www.bcaction.org

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All information posted on this web site is the opinion of the author and is provided for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as medical advice. Only a licensed medical doctor can legally offer medical advice in the United States. Consult the healer of your choice for medical care and advice.