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Edited on Thu Jun-22-06 01:04 PM by pitohui
i studied physics back in the day, there is NO safe dose of ionizing radiation to fatty tissue, which would include the breasts
the younger you are, the less likely that the benefits of mammograms outweigh the risk
i wonder how much of today's explosion of breast cancer among affluent women is caused by early adaptors of mammograms who got many of their mammo's on the older equipment, today's equipment is better and offers a lower dose of radiation but it is still a risk factor
a highly successful friend of mine started mammograms very young, in her 20s, which i thought was never advisable w/out risk factors, yep, she ended up w. breast cancer in her early 30s, so of course it's all anecdotal but i can't help but suspect cause and effect
check out the breast cancer "clusters" among educated affluent women who get regular mammo's, it's quite scary
no one would ask a man to have ionizing radiation applied to his testicles every year
they need to invent something else that doesn't smash the breasts and subject it to this kind of radiation but as long as women put up w. it then i guess they won't
a second and more horrid risk is the chance of false positives, they see something and have to take a biopsy, i know of a woman who lost breast, arm, and leg on that side of the body as a result of a biopsy because she was infected w. staph -- and in a cruel irony it turned out that the cyst was not cancer and she would have been fine if she'd just skipped that year's mammo
a mammogram is not an excuse to brag about how much pain we can endure and then go shoe shopping, it is not a cute gift for your mom on mother's day (i actually saw this suggested in our local newspaper), it is a serious medical procedure that carries risk
i have had mammograms now that i'm older but i was able to get my ob/gyn to put them off for quite a few years -- otherwise he would have robotically started them w. baseline at age 35, an age where there is almost no benefit in exchange for the risk of exposing the young breast to ionizing radiation!
finally don't just read an internet post and nod your head, do your own research and check out what i'm saying, you will see there is considerable debate about this that has been partly hidden from women in order not to frighten them from getting mammograms at all
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