Study questions benefit of yearly mammograms

[Bay_Kat]

(CNN) -- When the time rolls around for Kelly Bleyer's annual mammogram, she hears two voices in her head: her gynecologist, who says she absolutely must have a mammogram every single year, and her father-in-law, who urges her to get a mammogram every other year instead.

While most women would listen to their gynecologist, Kelly's father-in-law isn't just anyone: He's the co-author of a new mammography study in the New England Journal of Medicine, and he says he believes passionately that mammograms might be making women sick -- maybe even killing them.

"I really don't know what to do," says Bleyer, 50, an anchor and health reporter at KBND radio in Bend, Oregon. "I feel so conflicted."

Study questions benefit of yearly mammograms - CNN.com

I know some women that get them every 6 months. It's scary if what he says is true.

 

[MadDogMarine]

It has been known for a loooong time that radiation causes free radical damage to tissue. Now do a google search for "free radicals + cancer"
That is why one wants to minimize exposure to x-rays or other sources of radiation e.g. nuclear fallout or TSA body scanners.
Here are the comments of one M.D. who understands this connection.

Mammograms Add to Cancer Risk—mammography exposes the breast to damaging ionizing radiation. John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., an authority on the health effects of ionizing radiation, spent 30 years studying the effects of low-dose radiation on humans. He estimates that 75% of breast cancer could be prevented by avoiding or minimizing exposure to the ionizing radiation from mammography, X rays, and other medical sources. Other research has shown that, since mammographic screening was introduced in 1983, the incidence of a form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which represents 12% of all breast cancer cases, has increased by 328%, and 200% of this increase is due to the use of mammography.69 In addition to exposing a woman to harmful radiation, the mammography procedure may help spread an existing mass of cancer cells. During a mammogram, considerable pressure must be placed on the woman's breast, as the breast is squeezed between two flat plastic surfaces. According to some health practitioners, this compression could cause existing cancer cells to metastasize from the breast tissue.
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg, page 588

Learn more: Mammograms cause breast cancer (and other cancer facts you probably never knew)