I heard the report while driving home from the city last night…on NPR, of course, about the new recommended guidelines for mammograms starting at age 50 rather than 40. And they mentioned that the risk factor of having yearly mammograms outweighs the benefits. The first thing I thought was…OMG I have been having mammograms for years now …I will not go into how many, but needless to say—I have had A FEW yearly mammograms and I am dying…perhaps literally…. to know WHAT are the risks?!!
1. squeezing your breast between pieces of cold hard metal actually causes cancer???
2. the radiation from the X-ray increases the risk of cancer?
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY outweigh the benefits of early detection of cancer?
Finally…like they are a Fox news show rather than NPR, they tell us…
Apparently it is the ANXIETY of having the test is the “risk.” And my response to this finding is: WHAT THE F*CK?!!!.
Are we in Victorian England where I may need someone to fetch my smelling salts. PLEASE tell me that this is NOT what this team of highly respected “health care professionals” came up with. AT LEAST MAKE SOMETHING UP. I mean REALLY—we are women who deal with much bigger stresses than this ritualized torture and frankly the mammogram is one of the least stress producing tests because they tell you right then and there--you are good to go or perhaps—we want you to come back in 6 months just to check something. For heaven sakes! The anxiety of the test is a “risk factor?” If that does not have the Health Care Industry bribes written all over it—I don’t know what does? We must protect women from the “stress of the test” and save ourselves millions of dollars at the same time….oh…and a few women out of a thousand will die…but the stress. Oh the horror.
What else are these specialist planning to protect women from. How about seat-belts…they really rumple women’s clothing….How many women actually die in car accidents anyway…compared to say the EMBARRASSMENT of showing up rumpled. Perhaps GM and Ford can get together a group of specialists to study this and make some “recommendations.”
