forwomenseyesonly

Discussion Forum (Unnecessary Pap Smears: Part Two)

This post has been created to provide an additional forum for discussion.

Thank you Alex for suggesting the addition of an open forum devoted to discussion on this blog. (click on title or graphic to go to comments)

3,978 comments

  1. To the point about haircuts and smears being part of your beauty routine. For many years I was probably classed as a lower socio economic poor woman. During that time I couldn’t afford or justify spending money on the hairdresser. I got into the habit of standing in front of the mirror and shipping bits off and actually never had a real disaster. Now I CAN afford the hairdresser I still can’t justify it as I can so it myself and still don’t! I even manage to dye blonde all by myself…guess I’m still classes lower socio economic then! Which is patronising in itself. If someone is poor it doesn’t make them stupid!

  2. Hi Kat. Its great to see you still posting. I read all your comments and those on the PHE site.
    I don’t post much now only when I feel the need not every five minutes like I used to. However I keep up every day with the new posts.

    It bothers me that the head of Jo’s trust is a man. His name is Robert Music. His wife or daughter I cant remember which died of cervical cancer a few years ago. However its now his life;s mission to drive as many women as possible into screening. He’s overly worried about young women’s vaginas which is very creepy.

    I think Ada right when she said that GP’s might be binning the literature from this trust. The cats out of the bag now. The cervical screening programme has been run more like an operation of mass rape and women are waking up to the fact and refusing to screen. Doctors know how it was run more than anyone else. Numbers are falling away with every passing minute. It should never have operated this way especially with such a poor test anyway.

    I occasionally post on the PHE website but no matter what I write my posts don’t get through. I suppose they are frightened about all those future rape allegations they might have to deal with. They wouldn’t want women waking up to whats been done to them it would be a legal nightmare for them. And a lot of money. The crown prosecution website is very clear about what is considered rape in this country there is no getting round the law now. The average payout for a rape is ten thousand pounds so I was done 7 times that would be 70 thousand. Imagine if more women questioned how they were forced into having an unwanted examination the NhS would be bankrupt so they are desperate for my allegations of rape to be silenced.

    xx

  3. Hi Linda! You could be right about doctors and Jos and also Ada when she says docs are running out of steam. My surgery has gone from 6 pink posters about smears to 0.and I’ve not been hounded for a while.
    Glad you’re doing good and in a better place . This test has a lot to answer to! Yes I’m still posting and I’ve you to thank for finding me all those years ago.I wasn’t informed then. I just knew I didn’t want smears or any more hounding and when you caught up with me and I started reading up I got bloody angry about the way I wasn’t told anything and was so hounded. I’ve always been political and not afraid to speak out. I’m still bloody angry…not so much for me now but about the arrogance of the powers that be and for all those other women out there. So I’ll keep going ….

  4. Hi Kat. I’ve often wondered if doctors read the posts on this site. We have no way of knowing who accesses this site and where they are from. Perhaps some doctors are better informed now.

    I also cut my own hair. I haven’t been to a hairdresser for ten years now and I look ok.
    x

  5. I was reading through some of Alexs old posts yesterday. I miss him as he doesn’t post anymore He had a very unusual way of saying things but he was good in what he meant.

    • It’s a great post and very good to see. This thread is the most used of all the PHE screening blogs and appears to have most comments. I think someone posted early on that it was just a few complainers making unjust comments about a wonderful programme. Well, we’ll see. This thread has run and run and more people are still commenting, none supporting the programme.

  7. I’ll try to post this link…www.pulse today./clinical/more-clinical/-areas/sexual-health/how-we-boosted-cervical-uptake-by-11/20035225. article.
    Have the vomit bucket ready . opportunistic smears are the order of the day plus weekly reminders and a video of smears on a 200 minute loop plus pink plus a feminine handbag / shoe theme and still only an 11% increase. Brainwashes.

    • Kat, I saw this and read through, then found I couldn’t access the article again as was behind a subscription service.
      It made me feel quite ill, but I can’t have been the only one. A medical professional has added in the comments that all the pink everywhere was enough to make her weep.
      Yes and all that paraphernalia achieved what exactly?
      Apparently this doctors surgery had only got about 55% uptake in the beginning, so increase was hardly huge, and just how many cases of cancer did they find, I wonder…

    • With Pulse you only get a certain limit then need to pay but we can’t unless we are GMC registered, basically you get to see it once as a visitor then it locks you out.
      This definitely made me want to vomit! If any Receptionist rang me to say I was overdue then they had better be prepared to take what’s coming to them, I’m overdue nothing if declining their offer! Like any of us wish to discuss our intimate areas with a dam receptionist! The pink themes are awful the really are. Thank you for the link.

      • Thanks Chas. Agreed. If they texted or rung me every week they’d find themselves blocked very quickly and a complaint to PHE for illegally harassing an opted out woman!

  8. Not sure how I got into it as now into says I have to register…but maybe someone is registered!

    • Kat, I checked out this St Mary’s surgery in the NHS reviews section and some of them are hilarious, especially the ones from the Poles. 😂😂😂
      For all their award which they got from Jo’s the patients gave them 🌟 🌟.

  11. I may have posted this PDF (76 pages) link before but I went straight to colposcopy appointments on page 43, a whopping figure of 433,624 new and return appointments! Wow clearly keeping many in jobs!

    Click to access nhs-cerv-scre-prog-eng-2015-16-rep.pdf

    4.2 Appointments for colposcopy
    4.2.1 During 2015-16, a total of 433,624 appointments were reported at colposcopy clinics, a decrease of 5.7% on 2014-15 (459,804 appointments). Of these, 54.1% were new appointments (i.e. all appointments offered for a first visit), an increase from 53.7% in 2014-15. Return for treatment appointments made up 8.2% of the total, and 37.8% of appointments were follow-ups (see Table V).

    • Thanks for this, Chas, I hadn’t seen this before. Some interesting figures:

      Only 71% of women turn up to colposcopy appointments.
      Much less for follow-up appointments.
      Whether you get a biopsy or worse on first appointment varies hugely by the region you live in. Women in NE England 30% more likely to suffer treatment. Doubt any of them are told true risk.
      Of all biopsies taken: approximately 25% are CIN 1 or lesser infections. A further 25% are CIN2. That’s 50% of biopsies for harmless conditions.
      As you say, keeps them all in jobs.

  12. Over 433,000 colpo appts and around 200,000 abnormal smears a year. Hmmmm. Large smelly rat alert. …this will be the next target. Rounding up the defaulters. Seriously though it really is scary. I get Elizabeth phrase now guarding her asymptomatic body….

    • https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2017/09/20/health-matters-your-questions-on-cervical-screening/

      Kat, this is the latest from PHE blog, I thought you’d enjoy reading Q10. Our “world class” screening programme will not be bringing in 5 yearly HPV testing until 2020, although I think most women in the UK are 5 yearly or more these days. All this and the elephant in the room is that you can get an HPV self-test online for the price of a pair of shoes and get the results in 5 working days. Keeping the herd in the dark and keeping their jobs springs to mind. And who pops up again in every PHE blog but their buddies that vile pink charity. I wonder what their medical qualifications are for producing their research, and being in such close cahoots with government policy on this? We don’t see Macmillan popping up everywhere like they do, or even their chums the Eve Appeal. All claim to represent gyne cancer. Very suspicious.

      • Oh my days Ada as you once said will ànyone actually still be attending at all then? Don’t they realize their programme is dying? I doubt Crapita wI’ll do much to help and I can see a lot of women not wishing to have data on their sexual health held by them..and 2020 roll out? When CC is such a massive threat to women lol you’re right. They’re watching their own backs! Thanks for that link!

      • The obsession with uptake really gets on my nerves, as it’s just so meaningless. We live in a university city where the university practice only has a 25% uptake which brings down the overall city average to 69%. So they want to work on this so that the citywide average goes up, but it’s so pointless. The vast majority of people registered at the uni practice are under 24 so don’t qualify, and only a small number are eligible for screening, and as these will have a brain between their ears it’s hardly surprising they’ve checked out the evidence and declined. But the health zealots can’t understand this and are trying to set up campus campaigns. It’s nauseatingly pathetic. As you saw from the link, it is acknowledged that it’s the endgame, and it’s about how to wind the programme down, without revealing the harm that’s been done to us in the past. It’s these health zealots (often with no medical training) who seem to keep fanning the flames of misinformation, and keep terrorising women into compliance, often telling these women to spread the word and convert others to their way of thinking. Cervical screen1 for starters, and I’ve seen other young women taking up this role as online “advisors” as they’ve had 1 test and don’t know what all the fuss is about. Just let them wait and see.

  13. Hello, all. Did you guys see these sites where you can get birth control shipped to your house?

    (1) Nurx
    (2) PRJKT RUBY
    (3) The Pill Club
    (4) PillPack
    (5) Pandia Health
    (6) Planned Parenthood Care

    All this was on Bedsider.com, if anyone wants specifics on where different ones are available & what you can get from there. Might be good to post this on the birth control subject, I don’t know if there’s one on GETTING birth control or just one that discusses coercive penetration when someone tries to get birth control.

    • Doubt there was mucho any critical discussion at that forum, I imagine it was basically a lot of people agreeing with each other. Interesting they allow about 30 minutes to bowel screening, if you believe in screening, you’d think the risk of the cancer would determine your level of interest in the screening program…nope, the huge focus is still on a cancer that was always fairly rare here. We waste a lot of money on cervical screening the wrong way, funds better spent elsewhere..
      This is what happens when vested interests, politics and misguided (many also well-meaning) people are in control

    • Not that bloody woman again. She’s always doing articles like that, but Cosmo is a chav mag after all. I can’t stand these people. They have next to 0 medical knowledge, but have set themselves up on social media as pseudo medics preaching to the masses what they should be doing to their health. They are usually all under 25, I’m sure most of them are smokers and are probably pissed most weekends.

      • Moo (10/23/17) you’re right. How many times have I said this? Per EXACTLY WHAT doctors are trained in med school to do: My husband’s former best friend the anesthesiologist said — “To get a complete biopsy we use the spatula and fully scrape off the top layer of tissue.” The STANDARD they are taught is “SCRAPE HARD/DEEP ENOUGH ULTIL BLOOD IS VISUALIZED ON SURFACE OF CERVIX.”
        IF you are infected this is a GUARANTEE that the virus will become a permanent part of you. No chance to fight it off.
        RE the “endocervical brush.” Depends on type of brush utilized. Sometimes a very fine nylon brush is used. Other times however, the brush has STEEL OR BRASS bristles studded within the nylon bristles. This is to puncture your tissue, obtaining blood and cells from below surface.
        Same thing results.
        The only “safe test methods” are the self-tests such as urine, blood, or self-harvested mucus (Delphi). Anything that abrades the cervix can also perpetrate a permanent infection.
        For Kleigh:
        The Marie Clare article serves only to gently embarrass us for rebelling. Their way of calling us stupid w/o saying so.
        None of these asinine rags gets the picture (or are printed in denial of it) that we despise pap and will refuse it the first chance given. What message isn’t getting through? Or is deliberately ignored?

      • Kleigh such was the horror over the changed wording of the “invitations” it was actually debated in our Parliament with our Women’s Minister arguing to a room of about 3 people the wording should be omitted again as the idea was to increase the number of cervices scraped not reduce it ! I actually emailed her pointing out if they did tey would in fact be guilty of withholding information from women that they needed to make an I formed decision and also that I opted out two years ago after 15 years spent refusing to screen prior.. I never got a reply lol

  17. I saw a Tweet the other day suggesting smear tests should be compulsory! I wish I could find it now. I was outraged.

    For many years I wasn’t informed. I suffered them as I thought they were mandatory for getting birth control. It was certainly made to seem that way by many overbearing nurses I saw. I eventually stopped taking birth control to avoid being bullied and now I have found this site. I understand the risks and for me, I will not screen.

    I’m so pleased I am now informed and will never be bullied by a medical professional again.

    • I am with you after yrs of being traumatized with attempts at exams I finally said enough! I nam so happy not to bullied and abused

    • That’s terrible. I feel for the U.K. Woman. I whoulnt want to be chased down to have Pap smears or be reminded about them. So disrespectful.

  18. Oh my days gang! Instagram is the only social media I’m on (for my cat!) I looked ip the loathsome cervicalscreen1 page. I kid u not it starts cervical screening 💚! I bet they do really adore it too…

    • I read years ago that women are more likely to do what the medical profession and others want them to do for lots of reasons but one tactic was to adopt the good girl, bad girl approach. I notice regular Pap test women can be almost pious, looking down on “the unscreened”, they can be judgemental, rude and aggressive too. I believe this behaviour is shaped by the system deliberately manipulating our thinking.
      The official discourse reinforces that message too, responsible women have regular Pap tests, the rest of us are labelled all sorts of derogatory things like ignorant, lazy, silly, lower class etc.
      I know some women have been called a “silly girl” when they decline a Pap test, can you imagine a doctor calling a man a “silly boy” for declining a screening test.

  19. I always thought HPV could be contracted without sexual contact, maybe only a small risk but still a risk!
    Should you wipe down your gym yoga mat to avoid germs?
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41411558
    A US surgeon – Dr David Anthony Greuner – recently issued a more serious warning by claiming that herpes, a virus more commonly associated as coming from sexual contact, could potentially be picked up from dirty mats.
    He says in a blog post: “Making skin contact with a dirty yoga mat covered in germs and bacteria can lead to skin infections, acne, toenail fungus and even transfer of the herpes virus and staph and strep infections in susceptible individuals.”
    Meanwhile, a study in Sexual Health, a medical journal, also found a low risk of getting human papilloma virus (HPV), an infection which can lead to genital warts, by using unclean bike seats at the gym.

    • Easy solution. Get your own mat. These are not expensive. Each time you use it cover it with a long towel to fit and wash that. Roll up the mat separately since it contacts the floor which may not be clean.

      Carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer and use it. You can ask the gym what soluti. Can be used to wipe off exercise equipment before and after use. Most gyms ask their members to do this.

      We have had many discussions about dirty exam room surfaces. The medical profession is really lax about this compared to dental practices whcih tend to sanitize surfaces between patients and always use sterile tools.

  20. Hi ladies. A new post on the PHE blog how do we help ppl decide if screening is right for them. A Canadian woman on their system. Bullying all the way. ..

    • Kat, I check up from time to time, but hadn’t realised how much this had grown in numbers. It is wonderful to see, but also that they are actually posting the comments. After a couple that didn’t get through I then had a few comments posted and I was very pleased about that.

      • I have left a resonse to the canadian lady on the phe website. I dont suppose it will get through. I will look on monday as i left it late fri aft.

        It annoys me that someone high up in the NHS and gov decided in around 1987-88 that all british women would receive these examinations whether they wanted them or not. They are culpable for what they did. It was a human rights abuse that is finally coming out in the open. Someone needs to be reprimanded for deliberately targetting one half of the british population to have this vile ugly exam often against their will.

        The lies, mistruths and falsification of facts were all done to deliberately mislead women into testing. My heart breaks for the damage done to women as well as myself because of so called further treatments for problems we did not even have. In my opinion the whole programme is a criminal operation that needs exposing and bringing up on charges.

  21. Tried to post there too but awaiting moderation, Linda I can’t see yours yet either.

    Duncan posted on on 06 October 2017
    Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    You are right we have all been led to believe that it was mandatory in the past. The harassment for me was like you, on every GP visit for unrelated issues, and apparently for a woman to refuse cervical screening we “require counselling” – what a joke! It is our right to refuse any test/procedure/treatment. Abnormal cervical screening can be for many other reasons like hormones/menopause/bathing products/simple infections etc. It has got to the point that I no longer visit my GP and deal with my own health issues, which is ridiculous, I should be comfortable seeking help when I need it but sadly this isn’t the case.
    If you search Google “the truth about smear tests” you can research more on cervical screening, it is very enlightening to say the least.

    My aim is to get this Canadian lady to FWEO site, but sadly my comment is still not posted. I thought if I kept it short it may slip through!

    • What a load of bollocks! A ‘selfie’ is where you take your own photos – are the women here using the device on themselves? No, it’s still ‘necessary’ to have this thing stuffed inside you by a nurse, still an invasive procedure. So much for progress.

      • My thoughts exactly, its ridiculous! They will try to capture women any way they can! UK has already managed to increase uptake for women with learning disabilities with the help from the woman’s carer or guardian, I doubt they gave truly informed consent either? But it increased their dam figures closer to their targets for that payment! It is so infuriating!

    • That lens looks quite big and it doesn’t have a tapered end for easier insertion. They don’t explain, but it’s my guess it gets put inside the speculum once it’s fully open, so is likely to be even more painful, not to mention very difficult to sterilise.

  23. Hi All. It is apparent that PHE don’t intend to publish my comment to the Canadian lady. They never publish any thing I write and I wonder how many others comments don’t see the light of day either. For all their talk of ‘choice’ PHE is still the draconian organisation it always was, closely gate keeping who can say what to whom. I have cut and pasted it below – decide for yourselves whether i’m bang out of order or just saying it as it is.

    Dear Canadian lady

    Women the world over are being harassed to have cervical screening. It is not just in Britain but America and Canada too. In some countries it is now a legal requirement when applying for certain jobs. (Teaching, child care the police and military)

    I don’t think Papanicolau (the inventor of the smear test) imagined in his wildest dreams the repercussions for women the world over. I think he would be very sad to hear that his test is forced on us by the overbearing medical profession.

    This terrible situation has gone on for thirty years in Britain.

    Since getting married in 1987 I have had 7 tests forced on me because I was lead to believe by my GP they were necessary to get access to the pill. I now realize I was lied to. In my opinion there is nothing more unpleasant than being forced to accept an unwanted genital examination.

    I applaud Public Health England for changing the wording to the leaflets and letters they send out. I wish it had been the case all those years ago while I was being duped. I am also happy to see they are making women aware of the possibility of further testing when abnormalities are found and also the very real problem of false positives (as well as the more worrying false negatives)

    Slowly women are waking up to the fact they have a choice and more and more are declining to have this invasive and horrible examination. Despite self testing being well known, no one is informing women of this more acceptable option.

    However, even very recently I am still expected to defend my position on the subject during appointments for other health concerns. The fact the test is now a ‘choice’ needs to be transmitted to the country’s GP’s

    • It’s worth taking a look at their guidelines for posting. It says they don’t post comments if they’re making the same points which have already been made by someone else. If you can re-angle your argument and take a new line, it might work.

    • It seems a bit hit and miss, I was surprised my comments got through, maybe they’re getting so many negative comments, they’re holding some back. For years they only published the positive comments, even if it was ridiculous stuff, now they seem to allow some of the critical comments through…
      I wrote to one site a year or do ago and was told they liked to keep the threads balanced and so some comments were not published, interesting, for years that balance was missing…
      So many are still so fearful of women hearing about negative experiences with testing or hearing of screening alternatives or reading anything that might inform and put women off screening.

  24. Support group for women who’ve been left with issues after LLETZ, the so-called “minor” procedure. Of course, we know most of these treatments were/are unnecessary and avoidable.
    https://patient.info/forums/discuss/long-term-side-effects-of-lletz-615564?page=0&order=Oldest
    These groups would concern the program, esp. if women work out exactly why so many women ended up worse off, did this testing and the treatment really save them from cc? Was it really necessary? Were they misled?

  27. Interesting, they mention CC & poor Hygiene!
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171011100708.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fhealth_medicine%2Fcervical_cancer+%28Cervical+Cancer+News+–+ScienceDaily%29
    The world’s ‘better’ countries, with greater access to healthcare, experience much higher rates of cancer incidence than the world’s ‘worse off’ countries, according to new research.
    Only cervical cancer went the other way, with rates of cervical cancer five times higher among the 10 worst countries. “This may be because of poor hygiene in the 10 worst countries, which is especially important in cases of cervical cancer,” Professor Henneberg says.

    • The article totally ignored the environmental causes or cofactors in cancer development. It is not all about genes. Even with HPV, the cancer protein genes get turned on probably by other anaerobic bacterial infections in cervical cancer.

      How does testical cancer and lung cancer go with more developed countries? Just more exposure to cancer promoting chemicals. Showering might have something to do with lung cancer rather than smoking.

      Most types of Cancer has nothing to do with natural selection because these types of cancer become a problem in later adulthood AFTER their most fertile years. If these were childhood genetic conditions then these peoole would never have grown old enough to reproduce.

    • “if a woman has only one self-collected test at age 30 then she will have rediced her risk of cancer by 40%”. ???? Will this magic test will this protect her like a vaccine? Sounds too good to be true!!! Pass the vomit bag.

      • I’ve read up on this and it’s true. Age 30 is a key age and just one negative test at this point often means no further tests necessary. Most women will have settled down with a long term partner by this stage, and if they’ve ever had HPV, will be over it. If women only ever have one test it should be around this age. A positive result at 30 means you’ve probably had HPV which isn’t clearing..

      • It means if a woman only ever has one test in her entire lifetime it has most effect around age 30, more than any other age. She’s most likely to have found lifelong partner by then, and got over any HPV infections, hence 40% fall in risk.

      • Just one test at age 30? It depends on the woman. I know a woman who was a virgin until she got married at age 45. She had a pap test soon after that event and told she had to get a leep. She was over the magical age of 35. Same could be for a woman who divorces and remarries or has a different partner. She could be infected with different hpv virus strains and clearing them might take time.

        If HPV self tests were available to any age women no strings attached and she could decide if she wanted a doctor to view her results, I might agree.

  29. And now on the soap Eastenders they are using the storyline of Cervical Cancer to raise awareness. They took their time getting to which cancer it actually was for dear old Linda…..but of course I new it would be cc! Makes me sick!

    • I haven’t watched this in years, but let me guess the plot:
      Linda has been binning those invitations because she is silly and embarrassed, and thought that the over 50s didn’t need to get smears, so now she’s committed the crime of being overdue and will pay the price of death.

  31. I’m sure you all have read this before. I found this article and it made my blood boil! Those selfish f*ckers! And this article shows that gynecologists are a bunch of legalized perverts who only care about themselves! By complaining about these things, it’s obvious they don’t care about the patient!
    http://www.viralthread.com/gynecologists-reveal-the-11-worst-things-you-can-do-during-your-appointment/?utm_source=trancs&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=post

    • Holy shit! And I’M an asshole? That’s a hell of a thing- to be involved in what basically amounts to large-scale medical fraud & to bitch about the conditions. Don’t they corral women into these situations most of the time? It’s not like she added a coercive probing to the schedule when she went looking for birth control.

      Also, if these people want less arduous conditions at the workplace they can always just inform their patients/marks of the bonuses they get for reaching target quotas.

      That is, if things aren’t too distracting for them. Oh, wait- it was declared to not be a sexual/seductive environment for them. Which can’t be affirmed without being true, of course. If it WERE that way & it was made obvious, they’d likely have business problems. So it stands to reason that this is always the truth & actually matters- since gratification is nothing more than an accentuating factor in any kind of affront, whether it’s subtle or not.

      • How discussing, along with a vile picture to boot. That’s the most ignorant and self-serving article I’ve ever read. Its bad enough women are coerced into having these mostly unnecessary exams, but heaven forbid, the poor gynecologist feels uncomfortable! This just proves that’s its all about what’s best for the medical “professional,” never for the woman!

    • Woman are expected to see a gynecologist where they make woman think the only way to preventing pregnancy is to use the hormones they get paid to prescribe. Getting paid to grope healthy woman on a yearly basis.

  32. Have any of you seen the speech done at the recent woman’s march by scarlet Johansson? She was really shoving the gynecologist down those woman’s throughts. Her mom asked her if she’d been To see a gynecologist at 15 . And how her friends said planed parenthood saved her friends ass and found pre cancerous cells. I loved scarlet and her movies, but Now I don’t think I can see her in the same way as I used to.

  33. Kleigh, that’s unfortunate. It really highlights how the women’s healthcare industry and lobbyists use popular culture to brainwash women into thinking these exams are an essential part of life. They also do this by linking gynecology to women’s rights and empowerment when we know the opposite is true, its meant to control us, not empower us.

  34. I found something interesting in this DM article : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4998554/Men-5-oral-sex-partners-highest-cancer-risk.html

    “Our research shows that identifying those who have oral HPV infection does not predict their future risk of cancer well, and so screening based on detecting cancer-causing oral HPV infection would be challenging.”

    Imagine if they said cervical HPV infection rather than oral! It would mean that cervical screening is a bad indicator of future risk of cancer, this shows how little they actually know about HPV virus behavior and its association to cancer.

    If HPV oral cancer seems to depend more on the number of partners than catching a HPV infection, could it be applied to cervical cancer, therefore forcing the medical community to acknowledge that not all women are equally at risk of cervical cancer. They keep saying that women who get this cancer can be low-income but most of all not getting tested, comparing the test to some sort of vaccine that would prevent the virus infection and subsequent cancer, while I rather think it’s in fact the opposite (instrument sterilization, destroying protective cell layer through scraping, etc), what if it could be more about a certain threshold of sexual partners (just like any other STD) combined to not using condoms that actually rises the cancer risk?

    Despite rising rates of still incredibly low rates of oral cancer, they still refuse to organize a standard screening test, but always low and now declining cervical cancer has never had its screening doubted.

    • Could be related to immune system reactions to different person’s proteins, general health and nutrition and other types infections other than HPV. Patients with AIDS tend to have greater death rates from HPV related cancers.

      I agree that scraping an area wich may contain hpv infected cells when the hpv infection results from small abrasions in the skin due to sexual activitiy (or using tampons) is how the hpv virus gets into the cells, then put a brush up the cervical canal which is a very thin layer of cells. Doesn’t make sense to me. Think of bagel being spread with peanut butter.

    • This is confusing the hell out of them. ” Men? Having HPV related cancers in the mouth? Well, we can’t scrape the backs of their mouths. They’d all gag. None would cooperate with screening….” But it’s ok to medically rape women for same specimens…
      They will probably next double down on forcing women back to the stirrups. This time, claiming that we need to protect ourselves from men.
      Pap is the standard; and it’s the money-maker. Break them from pap and the status quo do-gooders will feel as if all control is lost. They’ll never get over their power trips of protecting us from ourselves and in keeping control over our bedroom lives.

  35. What might actually happen to the medical community if “women’s” cancer screening programmes were suddenly cancelled and replaced. Let’s say all pap tests were replaced by an HPV urine test that could be bought a pharmacy and results reviewed online by the user and mammgrams were canned and thermography and genetic/nutritional/lifestyle counselling was used instead for those who were interested.?

    1. Politicians couldn’t claim they were champaigning on “women’s health issues” and then they might actually solve real problems such as equalizing pay gender gaps, getting a daycare system that worked, supporting women who need help.

    2. Doctors would have more time to actually take care of sick patients rather than doing well woman exams and taking time out of consultations to pressure patients to get cancer screenings. How much of doctor’s consultations and fees paid are actually about this?

    3. Women might actually make their own healthcare decisions including getting hpv testing or hpv vaccines if they felt it was right for them.

    4. Hormonal birth control might actually be made available over the counter and reduce the number of unwanted preganncies and abortions.

    Can you all add to the list?

    • What’s happening in the UK is that the test is still exactly the same as before, but the sample is tested for HPV first and only if its positive then cytology is done too. If positive but cytology negative it’s normal recall in 3 years. If both are positive it’s off to the butcher’s shop.

    • Moo, you can be sure they’ve left a little something for vested interests, we’ll start HPV testing, the invasive test only, you have to decline the invasive test for 6 years before you’ll be offered a self-testing option unless you source it yourself online. Of course, the Delphi Screener option seems to have gone, websites are blocked, it’s the usual approach here when women find something better or something else they prefer – block it and force them into your dodgy program.
      We’ll do HPV testing from age 25, there are lots of worried women here because we currently test very young women, some research showed some GPs have even tested girls under the age of 17! So we naturally have lots of women who’ve had a “scare” when they were young, you see the telling comments, “I would be dead if not for that early pap and treatment for my pre-cancer”…yeah, sure, I’m sure this makes many in the know have a quiet chuckle at their ignorance.
      We all know the truth, these women have no clue, they’ve been misled for decades, led to believe they had a close call.
      You only have to do basic research to find HPV testing is NOT recommended before age 30, but if we started our new program at age 30 though, they’d be a major panic, “it’s cost-ciutting”…I’m sure some vested interests would join that chorus.
      So our serious and prolonged over-screening means we’re unlikely to ever see an evidence based program, or it’s far into the future.
      They have to be careful not to lead women to the evidence, to discover the horrible truth – they were tested against the long standing evidence, which led to huge numbers of unnecessary biopsies and over-treatment.

      So about 40% of our women aged 25 to 29 WILL test HPV+ – I’ve read differing accounts but I assume these women will be referred for a colposcopy and biopsy. We know this group of women clear the virus in a year or so, it’s the 5% who test HPV+ at age 30 to 60 that might benefit – but we should not be pap testing or doing HPV tests on women under 30.
      Instead we’ll waste scarce health resources and continue to worry and harm women. The lack of respect for women is appalling, including the thinking behind blocking the Delphi Screener and other self-testing options like Tampap (that women might prefer and benefit from) also, the misinformation, the manipulation – this is the way women are treated in Australia in 2017. Don’t talk to me about women’s rights and reducing domestic violence while we continue to allow these programs and vested interests to abuse women in the worst possible way.

      • For sure I would rather all the money wasted on unneccessary cervical cancer screening tests and mammograms be used for programmes to prevent relationship violence and help those victims. When politicians try to make an issue about “women’s health” I have to wonder exactly what they are specificly referring to abortion, access to contraception, ?

  37. I sent an email to a political commentator yesterday, he has a program on Sky, I tune in now and then, he’s usually fairly balanced, but I was disappointed to hear him “reminding” women about breast screening recently. I sent him a note pointing out women need better information, not just reminders and that many of us have made an informed decision not to attend. I referred him to the NCI summary and a couple of local sources of balanced information (we only have a couple!)
    I think he’s the sort of man who’ll look at the research but it says to me that even intelligent and politically aware people just seem to accept that screening is a good thing to do…it seems only a few have the ability to critically examine the official discourse, to doubt and question, and it seems we come from all walks of life.

    • I don’t know how it’s been for ladies in other countries, but October is supposed to be breast cancer awareness month in the UK, and I’ve hardly seen anything about it, and definitely no pressure to have a mammogram. No statistics shoved in our faces about how many are failing to “take up the offer” as they now call it in the NHS. No women saying, if I hadn’t had that mammogram I’d be dead by now. No funny little men popping up in the press telling us we’re too silly and embarrassed to save our lives. No statistics released to say how women are “unaware, unable to read, act, or think for themselves” from our university research departments. Quite a contrast to what it used to be. I’ve seen a few ads to be aware and look out for symptoms. Just how it should be.

  38. I don’t know if any of y’all are familiar with the American t.v show monsters inside me? Tonite they had a lady that had a uterine ablation for painful periods. She was having horrible pain and Oder weeks after the procedure. Her first thought was that her husband was cheating and she had a std. She went back to her gyms and was told it was a vaginsl infection. Later she felt something pushing out of her. Went to the hospital had a X-ray. Turns out her gynecologist left a sharp rod inside her. She said she felt betrayed. I wonder how often this happens? Gynecologists seem so egar to do invasive procedures.

  39. Hi, thanks everyone for commenting and keeping this blog alive! There are over 11,000 comments site wide, and this discussion forum post has almost 4,000 comments now. This is awesome but as a result this post is a bit slow to load and scroll. I have posted a new discussion forum for your commenting pleasure: https://forwomenseyesonly.com/2017/10/27/unnecessary-pap-smears-discussion-forum/ and will be closing this one to comments. Please click on the link to the new post to comment, or of course any other post!
    Sue 🙂

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