Women being conned about breast cancer screening

(NaturalNews) Western medicine relies heavily on convincing people that they need some sort of drug or surgery to remedy their ills and gain health. Studies often contain manipulated facts and skewed statistics that paint a favorable picture of some new procedure or treatment while shrouding the truth about the risks involved. The alleged benefits of breast cancer screenings are no exception as women are continually tricked into believing that mammograms will greatly benefit them when the facts show that they are largely ineffective.

Using an approach called mismatched framing, cancer studies will present side effects in absolute terms while exaggerating benefits in relative terms. When two different metric systems are used to present one set of findings, the results are deceptive albeit technically true.

One statistic says that regular breast cancer screenings reduce the number of breast cancer deaths by 25 percent. While this sounds like a large amount, the truth of the matter is that out of every 1,000 women who get regularly screened, only one extra life would be saved. Apart from screening, four out every 1,000 women will die from breast cancer; with screening, only three would die. The reduction from four to three represents the 25 percent statistic.

However the other half of the story is that 20 percent of those 1,000 women who get screened will be unnecessarily treated with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Up to 500 of them will undergo a needless biopsy due to an inaccurate screening. These monumental risks are never mentioned alongside the glowing endorsements that deceptively use the 25 percent reduction figure to lure women into continuing with screenings.

Drug behemoth Pfizer did the same thing with its Lipitor drug, claiming that those with multiple risk factors who take it will be 36 percent less likely to have a heart attack. When evaluated in absolute terms, two out of every 100 people who take Lipitor will have a heart attack; three out of every 100 people who do not take Lipitor will have a heart attack. The absolute increase in negative side effects among those who take Lipitor versus those who do not is not mentioned in context with the 36 percent reduction claim.

A study conducted by BMJ, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet found that about 33 percent of papers published in medical journals fail to use consistent metrics when presenting study findings. The result is a misrepresentation of the truth by the illness industry, drug companies, and the doctors and journalists who aid them in their deception.

Sources for this story include: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...

Prostate Cancer Screening: 50 Percent False Positives

(NaturalNews) As many as 50 percent of all prostate cancer diagnoses may be cases of over-diagnosis, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.

Over-diagnosis refers to the detection of a cancer that, if left untreated, would never have any negative effects on a person's life. This happens with cancers that grow slowly and do not spread to other organs, so that a patient dies of other causes before ever experiencing any symptoms.

Because prostate cancers tend to be very slow growing, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended against screening men over the age of 74 for prostate cancer. Treatments for the disease can have severe side effects, including impotence and incontinence, and may even increase the risk of early death.

Another paper, published in the same issue of the journal, found that the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test commonly used to assess prostate cancer risk cannot reliably predict this risk in most cases.

The PSA is a marker of prostate inflammation, which in turn is believed to be a risk factor for prostate cancer. Yet in a study on 1,540 Swedish men, researchers found that PSA levels were not correlated with prostate cancer risk. The only exception was levels below 1 nanogram per mililiter, which suggest a prostate cancer risk of almost zero.

The British National Health Service recommends referral for cancer screening such as biopsies for men between the ages of 50 and 59 who have a PSA level of 3 nanograms per mililiter or higher, and for older men who have levels of 5 nanograms per mililiter or higher.

Another recent study found that regular PSA screenings did not decrease men's risk of dying from prostate cancer.

The British Parliament has been considering promoting more regular PSA screening, but so far has declined to do so. According to general practitioner James Kingsland, a member of the government advisory group on prostate cancer risk management, the new studies lend support to this decision.

"It is using a test for something which it was never designed for, which is always dangerous," he said.

Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk.