Why I Will Never Get A Mammogram...Oh My!

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Before you click away from this article, I'm asking you to please just pause a minute and read through it.  I will keep it brief.  If you are a proponent of the benefits of mammography, then this little article will not change your mind, but it certainly won't harm you either.  I'm just asking for a little bit of an open mind to consider another way of looking at this increasingly "touchy" subject.

The first mammogram machine was introduced in 1966 and by 1976 it had become the standard way the medical community screened for the existence of breast cancer in women.  So, why do I have such a beef with this mass-accepted form of cancer screening?  Is it just because of the pain involved with squeezing the breast tissue into a vice-like machine every year? Well...no...but that is definitely something that I would have an aversion to having done.

There are actually three main reasons why I have made a decision to never have a mammogram. 

• harmful radiation
• inaccuracy / late diagnosis
• breast tissue compression

Routine mammography exposes an individual to an exceptionally high amount of ionizing radiation (radiation is a known carcinogen). The National Council on Radiation Protection says, "every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremental increase in the risk of cancer." The Department of Health and Human Services warns that "Ionizing radiation is invisible, high-frequency radiation that can damage the DNA or genes inside the body." Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D. has estimated that annual mammography increases the risk of breast cancer by 2% each year.   Cancer research has also found a gene (Oncogene AC) which is extremely sensitive to radiation.  Women with this gene are at a very high risk when exposed to mammography.  Researchers estimate that 10,000 of these gene carriers will die of breast cancer each year due to mammography.  Just one series of mammography (2 x-rays on each breast) is equivalent to the radiation dose of 1000 normal chest or spinal x-rays. It has also been found  that the incidence of certain types of breast cancers (DCIS) have increased by 328% since mammography was introduced.  There's much more evidence I could present here, but I think I've made this point fairly clear.

As far as inaccuracy rates are concerned, in a study of 60,000 women, 70% of the detected tumors were not tumors at all.  In addition to this, it has been found that 70-80% of all positive mammograms do not show the presence of cancer upon further biopsy testing.  False positives lead to emotional stress, and unnecessary biopsies, not to mention treatments.  In the cases where the positives are accurate, there is the problem of late diagnosis. Dr. Moshe Dekel, M.D. (OB-GYN, board certified) said that, "it may take up to 10  years for a tumor to grow to a sufficient size to be detectable by either a mammogram or physical examination." By that time, Dr. Dekel says that the tumor has achieved over 25 doublings of the malignant cell colony and may have already metastasized.

Now to the issue of breast compression.  Let's think about this.  If a woman indeed has a cancerous tumor in her breast tissue, what does your intuition tell you about the prospect of squeezing that breast tissue (and the tumor) under extreme pressure per square inch? Does your common sense tell you that it could possibly squeeze that tumor so much as to burst it, allowing its malignant cells to escape into the bloodstream?  Do you think this would be advantageous or detrimental?  Dr. Charles Simone, a former associate of the immunology and pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), is a strong advocate against mammography.  He agrees with the studies that have shown that the compression of breast tissue during mammography has been known to cause release of cancer cells into circulation, which almost guarantees the spread of the disease.  Dr. Simone said, "Mammograms increase the risk for developing breast cancer and raise the risk of spreading or metastasizing an existing growth."

Thermographic Breast Image

So, if I am so against mammography, do I have a better alternative in breast cancer screening to present to you?  Yes, I do.  It's called Thermography.  It has been in use since the early 1970's and has been FDA approved for breast cancer detection and risk assessment as an adjunct to mammography since 1982.  As opposed to mammography being an anatomical / compression / radiation-releasing procedure that is supposed to detect physical tumors, thermography is a physiological technology which uses an infrared camera to detect heat emitted by the breast tissue without touching the woman's body or releasing anything at all - it is a receiver only.  Even a few thousand cancer cells (which would be a pre-cancerous condition) have the ability to create new blood vessels to the effected area (neoangiogenesis) to satisfy the increased demand for nutrients to grow.  This process creates increased blood flow to the effected area, which produces an area of concentrated heat, which in turn is detected by the infrared cameras of the thermography machine.  This heat can be detected 7-10 years before mammography detection of a tumor, allowing the woman to react in a preventative mode.

Stay tuned next week, as I will present part two of this article, in which I will expand on this preventative mode and what it entails.  The goal here is to be aware of the natural things we can be applying to our lives every day to prevent breast cancer from ever occurring in the first place.  Yes, some have a genetic pre-disposition toward getting breast cancer, but lifestyle and other changeable factors play a major role in tipping the scales toward it or protecting a woman from it.  I hope at least some have seen the other side of this issue. 

Now for a bit of humor...check this picture out....