And you still find sites claiming that mammography is the gold standard when it comes to saving lives through early detection…
A follow-up study, conducted in Canada involved 90,000 participants over a span of 25 years. Results support those found in the 2011 Cochrane Review. This study also supports the recommendations set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that women don’t start screening until age 50 (not 40) and cut back on the frequency of screening.
This report has been discussed on NPR, written up in TIME Magazine on February 24, 2014, and is being discussed on many sites, including a well-written overview by Sayer Ji in www.greenmedinfo.com.
Dr. Alexander Mostovoy also has some words about this latest study: “Mammography has been the most controversial test for the past 40 years and for good reasons. It leads to over diagnosis and over treatment. 1.3 million have been wrongly diagnosed with breast cancer in the last 2 decades. Year after year we have these studies coming up with the same conclusion that screening mammography does more harm than good. Yet nothing is being done about it, we are still inundated with cancer industry propaganda that mammography saves lives and the importance of annual screening. How many lives are we going put at risk and what is it going to take for women to wake up and take control of their own health?”
Read the 10-page report in the British Medical Journal for yourself: bmj 25 year follow-up study.
Then ask yourself why the American Cancer Society continues to insist on annual mammograms from age 40.