I was at an open house event where an informal presentation was given by a chiropractor (which in itself triggers my bullshit meter) who stated that, due to the radiation and mashing involved, mammograms cause cancer.
And therefore, thermography: scanning the breast heat signature, is both safer and more efficacious. Making this a double-chambered bullshit sifter of a question.
I have the same sense when a chiropractor speaks about anything. When someone tells a whopper, making it go down is so much easier if there is a shred of truth. One could argue that no radiation would be healthier than having regular mammograms. How he could quote 75% and think the audience would swallow it is amazing.
He is wrong.
That was easy. Next question?
I once read in a book on PCOS that because a certain medication had more side-effects listed than PCOS has symptoms, the medication was therefore worse than the disease.
I was an art major at the time, and I still hate doing math more complicated than basic Algebra, and even I went “bwuh?”
In order to be diagnosed with PCOS (PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome), at the time, one must have at least IIRC three of the twelve or so symptoms listed, plus a couple of positive blood tests. So, by definition, women with PCOS are 100% positive for at least three symptoms. Whereas, side effects from the medication (and I think it was something insanely bland, like hormonal birth control) were experienced by less than 10% of the women with PCOS taking it.
Hmmm. 100% . . . . < 10%. Hmmmm . . . .
I put the book back and moved on to the romance novel section, where at least the abject silliness there is confined to impossible contortions of the human body during sex.
As with most good stories, there is a grain of truth in the assertion:
From here.
I’ve heard people say that skin cancer is caused by sunscreen, too. Same principle.
Yeah Czarcasm, but it is always fun to back it up with real and recent data.
Screening works to save lives. Apparently, relative to biennial screening from 50 on, screening from 40 on causes about 2 additional deaths/100K and saves an additional 181/100K, saving a net of roughly 179 lives/100K screened. Is screening the 40 to 50 year olds without a strong family history of breast cancer cost effective? I can’t claim to know.
beowulff, even that claim is for ionizing radiation from all medical and dental sources, but yes, misunderstanding that alleged factoid may be where the quack got it from.
As for that net ionizing radiation … it is a real problem for a host of solid cancers, and does need to be addressed. The tremendous increase in the use of CT scans, especially in younger persons, is the biggest culprit:
Oh, about thermography screening for breast cancer.
A screening test can have a fair number of false positives (poor positive predictive value) if it is low cost enough (economic and health risk cost) but it should have very few false negatives (a very high negative predictive value). The fact that when thermography said there was cancer there it was wrong three times more often than correct is actually tolerable; the fact that 14% of the time it was wrong when it said there is no cancer there is not.
There was a chiropractor featured on a news blurb explaining why she advises against immunizations for school kids. Once I saw the D.C. on her name, I dismissed her opinion as worthless.
Another point, there: When the sensitivity plus specificity is only 110%, that’s a piss-poor test. You can construct a “test” out of coin flips that’ll give you any combination of sensitivity and specificity totalling 100%. If, using actual equipment and experiments, you can only get to 10% above that, well, it’s not quite worthless, but it’s pretty darned close.
Though fun to laugh at, these type of statements are dangerous as they may prevent some women from getting mammograms and possibly preventing the early detection of breast cancer.
Same thing with the anti-vaccine crowd. People die needlessly because of the bunk they propagate.
The bogus statement cited in the OP illustrates one major problem with chiropractors. Beyond the fact that many of their claims for their own profession are nonsense, too many of them preach against useful and life-saving medical interventions, out of ignorance, resentment of the medical profession and/or to encourage distrust of physicians and bolster their own practices (another example is the widespread nature of anti-vaccine views among chiropractors).
Your source, naturalnews.com is a quackery-fest of misinformation that cannot be trusted on virtually any topic. Re mammography, it exaggerates dangers and minimizes the usefulness of the procedure, in accord with its ongoing vendetta against mainstream medicine and in support of quackery and woo.
Dr. John Gofman was a biologist and non-M.D. researcher who was involved in legitimate and useful studies; however his stated concerns about radiation used in medical imaging and nuclear power crossed over into non-fact-based alarmism and conspiracy-mongering, to the point where he is quoted approvingly not only by naturalnews.com, but even more virulently nutty sites like whale.to.
*“The Nuclear Industry is conducting a war against humanity.” (attributed to Gofman)
"We can now say, there cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshold. If this truth is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit to commit murder. [1994] Interview: Dr John Gofman
“By the way, medical radiation, from x-ray machines, is roughly twice as harmful per unit dose as Hiroshima-Nagasaki radiation. [1994] Interview: Dr John Gofman”*
Uh-huh. :rolleyes:
There is also a major triggering of irony meters over the OP noting that a chiropractor is warning against harmful radiation used in imaging. For many years, chiropractors have misused x-rays, for instance ordering full body x-rays which involved a high radiation dosage, in order to point out nonexistent subluxations for which you were supposed to visit chiros for long-term “adjustments”. Overuse of spinal films by chiros is still a problem.
"People often visit primary care physicians and chiropractors for low back pain (LBP). It is a very common problem, and one that usually resolves on its own. Research has repeatedly shown that X rays are rarely useful in the evaluation and treatment of simple back pain. Outside of certain “red flags” (fever, history of cancer, weight loss, and a few others), there is rarely any reason to get an X ray of someone’s spine when they come to see the doctor for low back pain.
Both anecdotal and quantitative studies have shown that chiropractors are very likely to order spine X rays. Given the inutility of these studies, and the radiation exposure, what reason could there be (aside from financial incentive) for chiropractors to order X rays?..X rays can be very effective at diagnosing traumatic bone and joint injuries such fractures and dislocations. These films can be very tricky to interpret, and nearly all doctors have their films over-read by a radiologist. Given that chiropractic is not useful in the treatment of an acute fracture or dislocation, and that chiropractors are not qualified to read these films, this seems a poor excuse for ordering films."
I suspect this is just a gross exaggeration based on a kernel of truth. Simple Baysian statistics saysthe chance of a false positivein a test like this (where only a small % of the population as a whole actually has the disease in question). So giving mammograms to sections of the populace that are unlikely to have breast cancer is a bad idea, and will result in many false positives and lots of people being exposed to radiation unnecessarily.
The 75% figure could be the chance that a mammogram test resulting in a “cancer” diagnosis is actually a false positive. In population where 0.1% has a disease, a test that correctly detects if someone has a disease 99% of the time actually means a given “positive” result has 98% chance of being a false positive.
That is NOT the same thing as saying 75% of cancer is caused by mammograms.
Laggard-I don’t believe all women should blithely sign up for mammograms in the belief that they are a harmless test, that if positive will give them a better outcome than if the cancer had been detected later.
The benefit to the individual woman from a mammogram is slight- they are only worthwhile in terms of overall benefit for screened vs unscreened populations.
For the majority, they do little and for a minority they will either do good, but may also cause harm to some women- through overdiagnosis and overtreatment and false positive results .
The benefits of mammography have been overstated to the general public, and the risks underplayed. This is not informed consent.
I believe women need to be educated about this and make a fully informed choice about mammography.
Namely (from my first cite):
*If 2000 women are screened regularly for 10 years:
1 woman will avoid dying from breast cancer
10 healthy women, who would not have been diagnosed without screening, will have breast cancer diagnosed and be treated unnecessarily; 4 of these will have a breast removed.
1800 will be alive after 10 years; without screening 1799 will be alive.
Other main points
Of 2000 women (in Europe) who participate in 10 rounds of screening:
500 will be recalled for additional investigations because cancer is suspected; about 125 will have a biopsy
200 will experience psychological distress for several months related to a false positive finding*
However, this isn’t to say I believe that mammograms cause cancer, or that thermography is useful, or that the chiropractor was anything but a woo-woo salesman of the first rank, or that women shouldn’t have mammograms.
Cites ( ome may require payment- sorry)
But there’s proof!
People who never use sunscreen have less skin cancer than those who do use it!
(Of course, those who don’t use sunscreen probably seldom go out into the sun.)
I heard wet streets cause rain.
I wouldn’t dismiss Gofman so lightly - he has pretty impressive credentials, including working on the Manhattan project, and being Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California at Berkeley.
The FDA’s take on Thermography vs Mammograms:
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm257499.htm
We can only judge on his statements as quoted.
-Robert Heinlein
He can join Linus Pauling among smart people who in matters of medicine believed stupid things, and who thought that the fact that they were smart in something else made them authorities in medicine as well.