Dr. Frahms Top Seven Reasons to Pause n Ponder Before Submitting Your Breasts to Mammography (The following information is included as Chapter 6 in my latest book....The Breast Cancer Pattern (It Starts With Your Starving Thyroid)…currently being revised, hopefully available at a bookstore near you soon. 1. Studies reveal serious doubts as to their benefit to long term survival The title of the article in Feb 17, 2002 edition of the Washington Post read: “Mammogram studies unnerve medical experts.” The byline said: “Findings that exams may not save lives has doctors, women re-evaluating beliefs.” This is how the article begins… Her patients cannot believe it. For years they had taken for granted that mammograms saved their lives, or would. For years they had subjected themselves to the cold metal of the machine, the painful pinch of the plates. After all, everyone knew that early detection prolongs life. But new assessments of the pivotal research supporting the effectiveness of mammography have cast serious doubt on that assumption, and Carolyn Hendricks, a Bethesda, Maryland oncologist, finds herself inundated with questions. “Many patients are asking me, ‘Why bother? What really is the Point?’” she said. “Many women feel betrayed.” In Seattle, Joann Elmore says she no longer pressures women to undergo the X-ray screening. “We are learning from this experience that perhaps we oversold ourselves and the public on the benefits of mammography,” said Elmore, head of general medicine at Harborview Medical Center. “We’re hoping that it works. But we don’t know. In Minneapolis, Richard Carlson, a breast imaging specialist for 15 years, feels as if he has lost his medical moorings. “If true, this is posing to be a very serious setback for breast cancer treatment and cures,” said Carlson, whose wife was diagnosed with the disease three years ago. “This would put us back to the beginning. How are we going to reduce mortality from this disease?” 2. Mammography is an unreliable source of information “Mammograms have been shown to have anywhere from a 20-30% false negative, and 20-30% false positive rate,” says W. Lee Cowden, M.D., co-author of Alternative Medicine’s Definitive Guide to Cancer. “That means they’re wrong anywhere from 40-60% of the time. Not very reliable.” A false negative means the test said there was nothing to worry about when in reality there was. A false positive means you had the heck scared out of you, perhaps even went through the emotional agony and experience of a follow-up surgical procedure, only to find that you’d been handed an inaccurate reading in the first place. 3. Mammography has potential to actually stimulate the development of breast cancer On June 2, 1991, the London Times published an article entitled, “Breast Scans Boost Risk of Cancer Death.” It summarized the results of the Canadian National Breast Screening Study (NBSS), the largest study of its kind ever undertaken. For eight years (1980-1988) the study had tracked 89,835 Canadian women, who were between the ages of 40-49. Half were given mammograms every 12 to 18 months. The other half were simply given a single physical exam. Nothing else. At the end of the eight-year period, breast cancer deaths among those who had received the mammograms were 52% higher than those who hadn’t. Some will argue that radiation used to irradiate breast at the time was much higher than what is generally being used today. Okay, but is there really any safe level of radiation? No, says John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., a well-known authority on the impact on health of ionizing radiation (the kind that comes from mammography, X-rays, and other medical diagnostic sources). “Our estimate is that about three-fourths of the current annual incidence of breast cancer in the U.S. is being caused by earlier ionizing radiation, primarily from medical sources.” 4. Mammography may well spread existing cancer When a woman exposes herself to mammography, great pressure is used to squeeze her breast tissue between two flat surfaces. “If there are cancer cells,” says Lorraine Day, M.D., herself a breast cancer survivor, “they are more likely to spread to other parts of the body, so that now you have cells circulating in the bloodstream.” 5. Mammography is not actually “early” detection It is my opinion that the heavy emphasis put on mammography has led many women to place unfounded confidence in its helpfulness. Not only is it unreliable and potentially dangerous, as I’ve already pointed out, but it’s also ineffective as an “early” warning signal. “It takes approximately eight years of growth before a breast cancer can be found on a mammogram,” writes Charles B. Simone, M.D., author of Breast Health. “During those eight years, many things happen, including the dissemination of those cancer cells to other organs by way of the bloodstream.” 6. Thermography is far more of an early warning tool than is mammography In Alternative Medicine Guide to Women’s Health Series (Book 2), the editors make the following observation: “A non-toxic, highly accurate, and inexpensive form of diagnostic imaging does exist and has been used by progressive physicians in the U.S. and Europe since 1962. Called thermography, it’s based on infrared heat emissions from targeted regions of the body. As the body’s cells go through their energy conversion processes, called metabolism, they emit heat. Thermography is able to register these heat emissions, display them on a computer monitor, and thereby provide a diagnostic window into the functional physiologic status of a given body area, such as the female breast. For breast cancer, thermography offers a very early warning system, often able to pinpoint a cancer process five years before it would be detectable by mammography. Most breast tumors have been growing slowly for up to 20 years before they are found by typical diagnostic techniques. Thermography can detect cancers when they are at a minute physical stage of development, when it is still relatively easy to halt and reverse the progression of the cancer. 7. Thermography is breast- tissue- friendly, not so with mammography From the same book mentioned above comes the following: “The procedure is simple and noninvasive, says Dr. Philip Hoekstra (a pioneer in the use of thermography). The woman stands bare chested about ten feet from the device; the imaging takes only a matter of minutes, as results are displayed instantaneously on the monitor; and generally the data can be rapidly interpreted with the assistance of sophisticated image analyzing software. No rays of any kind enter the patient’s body; there is no pain or compressing of the breasts as in a mammogram. Thermography is thus a breast-friendly procedure, and its widespread use could save many women from the development of breast cancer and/or highly traumatic surgery and radiation treatments later.” Testimony: Barbie B. “No more mammograms! Thermography was over the top good yesterday. The practitioner was sharp as a tack. Will get official report in 10 days from MD who reads them. Very impressed by the health risk management that the practitioner was able to share as a preliminary reading. Well worth it! Everything that has been bugging me showed up on the thermogram. Won’t need another for 2-5 years.” See meditherm/breast_thermography_default.htm for additional information about thermography. ------------------------------------- SPECIAL NOTE: Would you like some help with your health? Id be deeply honored. Just let me know via a Personal Message here on FB, and I can put you on my calendar for either an office visit or a phone consultation. Dr. Dave Frahm, ND Frahm Health Solutions, LLC Serving you for Him
Posted on: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 01:20:32 +0000
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