Breast Cancer Detection Methods Could Actually Cause Cancer To Spread

Recently, I came across an article announcing the winners of the 2003 Annual Erma Bombeck Writing Competition. I'm always up for a good story, so I checked out the winning essay in the humour category. It turned out to be a personal anecdote of one woman's experience of getting her first mammogram. Here's a brief excerpt:

'The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside out. I'm pretty sure Victoria's Secret doesn't have a bra for that.

'Suddenly, there was a loud popping noise. I looked down at my right breast to make sure it hadn't exploded. Nope, it was still flat as a pancake and still attached to my body...'

The author goes on to describe her reactions when she learns that one of the machines has caught on fire. As hilarious as this story is, there is a more serious message here. Mammography is a brutal procedure that can be extremely dangerous. And I don't just mean the risk of exam-room fires - that should be the least of your worries.

Mammograms are squeezing the life out of you - literally

I first reported on this highly questionable test for breast cancer over 10 years ago. The medical community ignored my warnings and overlooked what I dubbed the 'compression syndrome'. The syndrome is quite simple: Severe compression of the breast (the kind that occurs during a mammogram) leads to microscopic rupture of tissue - including tumour tissue, which spreads the cancer and can lead to earlier death.

I can't speak for every doctor out there, but I know that when I was in medical school, my classmates and I had it drummed into our heads that breast lumps should be handled very gingerly, because manhandling (or womanhandling) them could spread cancer. So I never understood why all that gentle-handling stuff seems to go out the window once young doctors graduate from medical school and blossom into surgeons or radiologists.

The mammographer has one objective: to squeeze the breast between the photographic plates until it hurts. The instructions for using the device state clearly that maximum compression is essential 'for good quality mammography'. In other words, squeeze the hell out of the breast and forget about the Hippocratic oath and those medical school warnings.

Even though mainstream medicine is determined to ignore reality, facts are facts - plain and simple: Two years after my first article on this subject, the word started coming out in medical journals. In May 1994, the Lancet published a study stating that there is a 'real possibility' that breast compression 'could cause small tumours to burst open and thus spread the cancer throughout the body'.

Big problems from a tiny needle

Needle biopsies aren't any better. Most people, including many doctors, don't think of a needle as a knife. But if you look at a hypodermic needle under a magnifying glass, you'll see that it's beveled (ground down on one side) into a sharp, cutting edge. Essentially, it is a tiny, hollow knife. Experiments have demonstrated that after sticking a needle into cancer tissue, cancer cells can be found in the bloodstream.

Where do the cancer cells 'released' by mammograms and biopsies go? It's not at all unlikely that they could manifest themselves in the bone and show up 10 years later as metastatic - that's incurable - cancer of the breast.

Actions to take:
(1) Do not submit to mammography. It will not prolong your life and may actually shorten it.
(2) Refuse needle biopsies. When they remove lumps suspected of being cancerous, surgeons go to great pains to cut well beyond the edges of the tumour - because if they cut into a cancer, they will spread it throughout the body. So why is it that they go brain dead and jab needles with knife-like edges into tissues suspected of being cancer?
(3) If you submit to a lumpectomy, tell the doctor that you want to see the pathologist's report on the specimen. He'll understand what you are looking for: You want to make sure the borders of the specimen were free of tumour tissue. Don't let them give you any of that 'We think we got it all' stuff they're always trying to dish out.

References:
'The First Time's Always the Worst,' winner (humor category), Annual Erma Bombeck Writing Competition, Washington-Centerville Public Library (www.wcpl.lib.oh.us), 01/03
'Breast compression to increase the sensitivity of lightscanning for the detection of carcinoma: potential hazard?' J Biomed Eng 1992; 14(2): 173-174
'The debate over mass mammography in Great Britain' BMJ 1998; 297(6,662): 1,541-1,542
'Breast screening in Britain and Sweden' BMJ 1998; 297(6,661): 1,471-1,472
'Physical trauma and breast cancer' Lancet 1994; 343(8,903): 978-979