NIDAN - The Cancer Lie - Part 4 - Mammography

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Promotions of the American Cancer Society continue to lure women of all ages into mammography centers, leading them to believe that mammography is their best hope against breast cancer. All those pink ribbons have given women an inflated fear of the disease, and unrealistic expectations about the benefits of mammograms. Mammograms also lead some women to undergo unnecessary treatments for tumors that are not life-threatening.


Mammograms have about a 70 percent failure rate, which means that many women undergo invasive biopsies needlessly. Experts from the Nordic Cochrane Centre in the U.K., have estimated that about 7,000 British women are improperly diagnosed for breast cancer each year because of mammography.


Aside from unneeded treatments that may result from improper diagnoses, women screened for breast cancer using mammography undergo tremendous exposure to ionizing radiation every time they are screened. Exposure to this radiation is often implicated in causing the very malignant cancers that are meant to be detected. Continual exposure to excessive levels of radiation due to receiving annual mammograms greatly increases a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.


A study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, 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.


The study determined that low-dose mammography radiation increased the risk of developing breast cancer by 150 percent. Women under 20 who have had at least five mammograms, are 2.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer, than high-risk women who have never undergone low-dose mammography screenings.


A 2005 study concluded that a push in Denmark to screen large numbers of women for breast cancer with mammography had reduced breast cancer deaths by 25 percent. Scientists from the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen and the Folkehelseinstituttet in Oslo, have re-examined this pro-mammogram study, along with additional data, and come up with an entirely different conclusion.


First, they found that the scientific validity of the 2005 study doesn't hold up, because the research was deeply flawed. The new report shows there's no evidence mammography itself was the reason behind any reduction in breast cancer deaths. In fact, deaths from breast cancer were lower, in areas where women didn't undergo those screening tests.


The results showed that breast cancer deaths declined by 1% in the areas where regular mammography was frequently used. However, breast cancer rates went down 2% per year, in women of the same age living in non-screened areas.


American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine, found breast cancer rates increased significantly in four Norwegian counties, after women there began getting mammograms every two years. The researchers were surprised to find that the incidence of invasive breast cancer was 22 percent higher in the group regularly screened with mammography. The researchers say they can't blame the increased incidence of breast cancer on more cases being found, because the cancer rates among regularly screened women remained higher, than women who only received mammograms once after six years. The scientists conclude that this indicates that some of the cancers detected by mammography, would have spontaneously regressed, if they had never been discovered on a mammogram and treated. Simply put, it appears that some invasive breast cancers simply go away on their own, healed by the body's own immune system.


By attending screening with mammography, some women will avoid dying from breast cancer or receive less aggressive treatment. But many more women will be over-diagnosed, receive needless treatment, have a false-positive result, or live more years as a patient with breast cancer. One thing is for sure; the cancer industry continues to insist that mammography screening is safe and effective at preventing breast cancer deaths, despite evidence that indicates otherwise.


In virtually all of its important actions, the American Cancer Society has been strongly linked with the mammography industry, ignoring the development of viable alternatives. Five radiologists have served as American Cancer Society presidents, and in its every move, the agency reflects the interests of the major manufacturers of mammogram machines and films, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak, and Piker.


DuPont was also a substantial backer of the American Cancer Society's Breast Health Awareness Program. They sponsored television shows and other media productions touting mammography. They produced advertising, promotional, and information literature for hospitals, clinics, medical organizations, and doctors. They produced educational films, and of course, lobbied Congress for legislation promoting availability of mammography services.


DuPont supplies much of the film used in mammography machines. Both DuPont and GE aggressively promote mammography screening of women in their 40s, despite the risk of its contributing to breast cancer in that age group.


Conspicuously absent from the public relations campaigns, is any information on environmental and other avoidable causes of breast cancer. This is no accident. DuPont is in big regulatory trouble at E.P.A., and that could mean big economic trouble for the company. Perfluorooctanoic acid, P.F.O.A., also known as C8, and perfluorooctanoate, is a toxicant and carcinogen. Studies have associated it with infertility, birth defects and cancer, including breast cancer. The link between P.F.O.A. exposure and breast cancer is supported by the fact that P.F.O.A. is an endocrine disruptor, and a known mammary toxicant with transgenerational effects. DuPont has been using P.F.O.A. in the manufacturing of fluoropolymers since 1951. The company has repeatedly made claims that exposures to P.F.O.A., or C8, do not present a human health risk. This public relations spin is clearly out of step with recent conclusions drawn by the U.S. E.P.A., with data published in peer-reviewed journals, and with data embedded in 50,000 pages of industry-sponsored studies submitted to them.


The pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca, is a multimillion-dollar donor to the A.C.S.. AstraZeneca influences every leaflet, poster, and commercial product produced by the A.C.S. Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. It's no wonder these publications focus almost exclusively on mammography, while ignoring carcinogenic industrial chemicals, and their relation to breast cancer. When it founded Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985, AstraZeneca (formerly known as Zeneca before it merged with the Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra) was owned by Imperial Chemical Industries. Imperial Chemical Industries is one of the world's largest manufacturers of petrochemical and chlorinated organic products, including the plastic ingredient, vinyl chloride, which has been directly linked to breast cancer.


AstraZeneca is also the sole manufacturer of Tamoxifen, the world's top-selling anticancer and breast cancer prevention drug, with about $1 billion in annual sales. The five-year clinical trial claimed that Tamoxifen reduced breast cancer risks by 30 percent. The risks of this toxic drug, including potentially fatal uterine cancer and blood clots, were noted but trivialized. As the trials progressed, it became clear that the risk of serious complications outweighed professed benefits. Women have still not been informed about delayed risks of liver cancer.


National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a masterful public relations coup for AstraZeneca, providing the company with valuable good will, from millions of American women.


The American Cancer Society's strategies remain based on two myths: that there has been dramatic progress in the treatment and cure of cancer, and that any increase in the incidence and mortality of cancer, is due to aging of the population, and smoking, while denying any significant role for involuntary exposures to industrial carcinogens. As the world's largest nonreligious "charity," with powerful allies in the private and public sectors, A.C.S. policies and priorities remain unchanged. Despite periodic protests, threats of boycotts, and questions on its finances, the Society leadership responds with powerful public relations campaigns, reflecting denial and manipulated information.


The nonprofit status of the Society is in sharp conflict with its high overhead and expenses, excessive reserves of assets and contributions to political parties. All attempts to reform the Society over the past two decades have failed. A national economic boycott of the Society is long overdue.