In his Wellness Report (http://www.blaylockreport.com/ ) of March of 2007, Dr. Russell Blaylock wrote extensively on the subject of breast cancer. I take his medical stands quite seriously, but here I bring a slightly different perspective to his figures.

Beyond the risks associated with false positives, breast tissue is so sensitive to a mammography’s radiation as to be threatened by the very examination developed to protect it. In fact with years of testing, the likelihood that a discovered tumor was either generated or stimulated out of dormancy by a former mammogram rises substantially in significance. At eleven treatments, the probability (by my take of Blaylock’s figures) that a dormant or subsequent tumor had been brought about by those treatments would, depending on the mammography technique, range from 10% to 25% and rising. This doesn’t even include the other problem of radiation’s stimulation of tumors out of dormancy, and into a foreshortening of that reprieve common to those over fifty.

If a mammogram indicates a tumor, how does one know from whence it came: remnant radioactive dust from Chernobyl, an earlier mammogram, or “tough luck?”

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has made recommendations that would reduce such risks and more, yet I have heard no mention of radiation effects. Is this restraint under fire a way of buying respite from what is ultimately a possibility that is more horrific than mammography’s other fine print, the false positive? That would be extraordinary; and this mention of it, irresponsible except that the task force and its vision deserve to have its critics take pause.

(December 23, 2009) Today Teresa Heinz announced that mammography had revealed that she had breast cancer, and assured that “the cost of mammography is far lower than the physical and personal tolls women, ages 40 to 60, face if their cancer goes undetected early and they later have to be treated with aggressive chemotherapy.”

I am also glad that this mammogram detected her tumor, but what about the sequence of mammograms that led up to this last one? Could one them have been the cause of the tumor itself (true positive)? What about radiation or chemotherapy based on a misdiagnosis (false positive)? Could a later emergent tumor be from a cell that mutated under the influence of that treatment, rather then from one that had escaped it?

Teresa Heinz, as well as those dealing on a day to day basis with breast cancer, has benefited women with her efforts, but without a grasp of the Task Force’s claim, much is left unresolved.