One might reasonably assume that frequent pap tests would result in lower incidence of cervical cancer, but a closer look reveals that this is not the case. After comparing pap test practices from a number of countries and looking at the associated incidence of cervical cancer, it becomes clear that more frequent and extensive pap testing does not necessarily correlate with fewer cases of cervical cancer. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case. Comparing countries that include the Netherlands, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel helps to highlight how more is not always better:
Comparing the seven countries, Canada has the most frequent and extensive pap testing program but the highest cervical cancer incidence rate and second highest death rate. The US has similar pap test practices yet has the second highest incidence rate (next to Canada). Saudi Arabia has no cervical cancer screening program, yet has the lowest incidence rate and the lowest death rate. From looking at the numbers and comparing them to the practices in different countries one can’t help but wonder, what is wrong with this picture?
http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/local/live/medical-care-and-insurance/womens-health
http://www.cancer.fi/syoparekisteri/en/mass-screening-registry/cervical_cancer_screening/screening_programme/
http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOWHJ/TOWHJ-6-1.pdf
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/pap-smear-cervical-screening-remains-taboo-in-turkey.aspx?pageID=238&nID=66607&NewsCatID=373
http://www.maccabi4u.co.il/SIP_STORAGE/files/8/8918.pdf
http://healthcaredelivery.cancer.gov/icsn/cervical/mortality.html?&url=/icsn/cervical/mortality.html&subsite=icsn
forwomenseyesonly 
Interesting, indeed. When it says there’s no screening program in Israel but paps are recommended, does that mean they’re recommended in high-pressure coercive circumstances or are they just recommended the same way a server at a restaurant may suggest a wine to try? Is there any further information about the context for screening in Israel?
Also, if anyone knows much about if there is a screening program in Switzerland and/or if there is one, I’d love to know. I’ve been looking into going abroad for some time now, and Switzerland is towards the top of my list for various reasons.
Lastly, I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve last commented, but I do check back every now and then to see if there are any new findings. This was a great post and I hope that all of you have been doing well.
Hey, Ro. I don’t know about either of those places in terms of doctors, but in terms of immigrants there are some concerns. The site Bare Naked Islam has a decent amount of stuff on that, but it seems in Swiss schools the girls get terrorized quite a bit by them. Getting called all kinds of stuff & grabbed in all kinds of places, at the very least. Eastern Europe seems to be less accommodating of that kind of shit.
It seems that a good deal of the Mediterranean doesn’t get as pushy as America does, even with inconsistencies (ex: birth control’s over the counter in Spain, but it seems child birth is similar to the US). I remember “talking” on Youtube with an Italian woman (specifically, I wound up conveying that story about the guy that went to the hospital for stitches in New York & got a rectal exam forced on him with an arrest to go with it) and she said something to the effect of it being unheard of in Italy.
While it’s a different country, Switzerland is geographically close to Italy & might have some similar trends. I DO remember hearing something about them getting rid of their breast cancer routines & it seems women only get tests done if they want them done. Might inform on the general “rhythm” of the place.
It also seems that the Slavic countries are a bit more independent in that way (partially from distrust, I’m sure- but then, that can also be a good thing). I don’t know how things are behind closed doors, but it seems being able to get things without having to depend on someone NOT screwing you over is a common Slavic trait.
Good to hear from you & hope everything’s fine on your end, too.
In Ontario Canada it is all about surveillance of woman’s bodies for the greater good they say but government has legislated a woman right to privacy away from her and they take all testing results away from her right to protect her privacy into a huge database they then allow researchers to access this data and guess what? when the researchers get that data and do their reporting they own the data they based their findings on – once again women lose the right to maintain their privacy right to their own bodies – ain’t public health care grand!
So they feel that these findings are something they have discretion over? So they can decide whether someone gets the results of their own testings?
I’d imagine if someone got those results without their consent, the “owners” of that information would feel terrible. That strikes me as a good thing, though.
It occurred to me that preventive medicine is like the police arresting people first in order to prevent them from going on to commit a crime. How would men like it, to be called up every 3 years to undergo a police interview at the police station? The “summons” could be in pale blue envelopes to make them feel it’s a manly thing to do. Anyone objecting would be required to undergo counseling. This kind of regular surveillance would undoubtedly reduce crime and prevent some deaths occurring. To carry out such a “beneficial” service to the public, the police could be incentivised financially to force people to go, after all, it would “save lives”.
Why is this kind of thinking acceptable for the treatment of women in the UK but not men?
This is exactly the menatality of screening applied in this circumstance. John would hate it as it is (contrary to his alignment) But this is what most women accept as normal. Women Ignoring our version of this letter is akin to making us feel like we’ve gone on the run anyway.
I have lived in Israel, though for a relatively short period of time. Never had paps mentioned to me by anyone.
I also worked in Eastern (Slavic) Europe for a few years. No pap test mentioned ever. Also, it is quite easy to see a doctor privately and anonymously there, so no information can be gathered in the government medical surveillance databases. Abortions can be done on demand and anonymously if the woman so wishes. Most medications, even the ones marked on the packaging as “prescription only” can be bought over the counter. It is up to the grown up patient to decide what to with their health and body. No one is going to run around rescuing the person who made a stupid decision, but there is no surveillance either, no pressure and no medical propaganda. Pretty much Law of the Jungle: “every man for himself”. Responsibility for your own choices and readiness to fix your own problems is a trade off for freedom and privacy. I liked it that way.
Did anyone else see this article on lack of informed consent that was just posted by the BBC? It discusses a French website that has collected accounts of patients who were subjected to pelvic exams and other violating procedures without their consent, a woman who found a policy paper for a French university hospital that discussed examining patients under anesthesia. There’s also a very short interview with a doctor who defends it, and says he doesn’t have to tell patients everything he does with their bodies.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34426475
Diane, this is a fantastic find. Thanks for posting it! Let’s hope it makes headline news.
There is a new piece added to the original with the views of the junior doctors. One describes herself as a “rapist”.
Apologies – I am unable to link.
We live in a world where women’s bodies are considered public property and therefore can be judged and commented on and touched without our consent. And then shamed and judged further if we don’t like it. It’s rape culture and sadly the medical profession is part of that culture. In some ways attitudes are changing but there are deeply ingrained beliefs and teachings that are going to a take a long time to change. I think back to the story of the medical student who spoke with a head prof at a medical school who became angry when she challenged him on his stance that a woman won’t get a BC prescription from him without a full well woman’s exam.
Hello All. I just want to caution you on interpreting the above statistics as static. The incidence and mortality rate of cervical cancer is not low because it’s always been low. The incidence was 3-4 times higher than it is now, at least in the states, in the 1970s, and the mortality much higher. http://www.milbank.org/uploads/documents/featured-articles/html/Cervical-Cancer-Screening-in-the-United-States-and-the-Netherlands.htm. Cervical cancer is actually the most common gynecologic malignancy in Africa, as a whole, and has the highest cancer-related mortality there. Note that cervical cancer screening is not widespread in many of those countries. http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-031574.pdf. The U.S. incidence has decreased as PAP screening increased and implementations of treatment (e.g. LEEP or cryosurgery) for cervical dysplasia/precancerous lesions occurred. Evidence based research now demonstrates that most cervical cancer is caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus AND 70-90+% of healthy young women will spontaneously clear cervical dysplasia depending on the severity. Following this evidence, the ASCCP and ACOG responded by recommending PAP smears every 3-5 years for LOW RISK women depending on their age and PAP status through age 65 and there is a higher threshold for performing invasive procedures on young women. That being said, these are GUIDELINES. At the very least, I think it’s important to have a conversation with your physician or midwife about the indications for PAP, your risk factors and determine how often and if you will have a PAP. I can’t speak for the medical community as a whole, however, this is something that I discuss with all my patients whether welcome or not, so at least I know we’re on the same page at the end of the visit and I know you have considered your options. Yes, we are all adults, and you take responsibility for your own health, but there is a lot of misinformation circulating, especially on the internet and part of my job is to educate my patients and make a decision that’s right for them. That may be a PAP, it may not be. However, keep in the mind that the average cervical cancer patient is sexually active, in her 40s, and has not had a PAP smear in the last 7-10 years.
No need to bother with “cautions”, we heard this BS before. Many of us hear it every time we see a doctor for any reason. We face a PAP-touting no matter what the reason for the visit is.
The standard mantra about cervical cancer decreasing only thanks to paps cannot explain why it is also decreasing in women who never submitted to paps or been HPV-vaccinated.
Re “At the very least, I think it’s important to have a conversation with your physician or midwife about the indications for PAP”.
These “indications” are:
– Lack of doctor’s knowledge about the harm that pap screening causes.
– Doctor’s fear for their job and wealth if they question the imposed guidelines.
– Incentive payments to doctors for convincing the patients to participate in the program that has never been tested for safety or efficacy, nor ever been designed to benefit individual women. It has always been about masses, numbers and money.
And it is impossible to have a conversation. It is always one-way lecture and pressure.
You say “there is a lot of misinformation circulating, especially on the internet and part of my job is to educate my patients and make a decision that’s right for them”, but you forget to mention that the medical professionals disseminate just as much misinformation, only they, unlike the Internet, cannot be forgiven for that, because they do it either for their own gain, or out of incompetence. To educate others, one must be educated themselves first. So please find some real facts, instead or repeating the same propaganda we all heard before. And the last point: you shouldn’t be making decisions for your patients, your job is to provide true facts, and the decision is the patient’s, because it is their health and their body.
A typical doctor. Always knows best, even when it knows nothing.
In the UK an organised screening programme was set up in 1989, replacing a patchy, opportunistic smear test policy which had smeared about 40% of women during their childbearing years. The new organised programme of 1989, offered GP’s incentive payments and since then about 80% of the UK female population has been regularly forced to have cervical screening. The result since 1989 has been that the death rate from cervical cancer has declined at exactly the same slow rate as it did from 1950 to 1989, despite 40% more getting regular pap tests. Numbers of young women under 40 dying of cervical cancer are very much the same as they were in 1950.
Supporters of the programme claim that with the advent of the pill and the “sexual revolution” of the 1960’s, the rates of cervical cancer in the UK would have shot up to epidemic proportions, were it not for the UK screening programme and claim it is saving about 4,500 women a year who would otherwise have died. Yet in other developed neighbouring European countries, such as France, (where one third of women have never been screened, and there is no organised screening programme), no such epidemic of cervical cancer has ever occurred.
Neither has it occurred in any other European country. The disease has been on the decline at the same steady rate, with or without pap screening.
You’ve got to admit that the figures fail to show that this test has been the asset to women’s health it is made out to be.
Hello Summer. Please don’t presume we are a group of hysterical anti pap raging morons. Each one of us has undertaken our own research, not just followed blindly some mantra imposed from above so please give us credit for that. We know the net is awash with a lot of erronious information so we go to respected sites such as the Nordic Cochrane, the BMJ, the Lancet and many others including the leading thinkers in healthcare at the moment. We use our own judgement to decide for ourselves what us best for us as individuals. The conclusion from our independent reseach is that pap testing is at best a waste of time and at worst dangerous for our health. This site is for people who are either against pap testing or those who have been harmed by them. It is pointless trying to convince us of your arguments as we all have our own counter arguments which we are sticking to.
I feel that I am repeating myself at nauseum. Please do not compare cervical cancer rates or deaths in subsaharan Africa with the rest of the world and say it is because they have no cervical screening programmes. The African women dying of cervical cancer almost all of them have AIDS.
Do you have to read a recent scientific publication? http://www.intechopen.com/books/topics-on-cervical-cancer-with-an-advocacy-for-prevention/cervical-cancer-in-sub-sahara-africa
Most of these countries have such limited resources that women cannot even get to a hospital let alone have an ACCURATE cause of death determined to be from cervical cancer. It is all extrapolation. How can Malawi have a cervical cancer rate of 44 per 100,000 yet only have one or two cytologists in one or two hospital labs? Extrapolation. These African women are dying of other preventable diseases, war, famine, lack of sanitation but people are worried they do not have pap tests?
In India the vinegar inspection method is used and it is cheap to train nurses to do this if women want that. But maybe these countries do not even have the resources for that. In Canada one can buy a package of plastic speculum for $8 and a bottle of white vinegar (5% acetic acid) for $2 and look up a manual on the Internet and inspect her own cervix with a mirror and a flashlight. Better yet if we could buy those self HPV kits or cervical cancer kits that are blocked by several countries due to GREED. Green tea extract does a great job at helping resolve HPV lesions and even some small cancers but I will let you look up the resources yourself.
I am tried of being bullied for paps at every doctor visit. I would rather the funds that would be for my pap tests, mammograms and doctor’s incentive bonus were better spent on sick people in my own country or elsewhere.
Resource for visual inspection with acetic acid.
http://screening.iarc.fr/viavili.php
You might also note that in India this is commonly done by nurses or trained female workers who travel around with their cyropack. Women are asked to come and get a check voluntarily. There are no male doctors groping women and looking at them naked.
Thanks Moo this is a great resource.
Correlation is not causation and that is what is being done with the pap and CC screening programs. Stomach cancer rates have been on the decline without screening programs. To say that rates of CC have gone down because of the pap and screening programs aka coercion for women to screen is to ignore confounding factors also involved in the lowering of CC rates. Those factors include more condom usage, less women smoking, better understanding of nutrition, better hygiene, and better treatments for cancer. There have also been no randomized controlled trials proving the effectiveness of the pap smear. To say that the incidence was 3-4 times higher before screening programs is hyperbole and scare tactics. Cervical cancer has always been rare with screening lowering rates from 3 in 100,000 to 1 in 100,000. Using a comparison to Africa is further hyperbole and scare tactics as CC is not even one of the top 10 causes of death in the world. In underdeveloped countries the leading causes of death are infection, malaria, Aids, birth complications, malnutrition, and tuberculosis. So stop with the scare tactics and provide honest unbiased information about CC and the pap smear including that CC is very rare and that the pap smear is at best 70% accurate and a with regular testing a woman is more likely to get a false positive than she is to have CC. And respect a patient’s legal right to choose to not screen.
Summer,
Scare tactics don’t work on informed women. We have each done our own research, have weighed up the pros and cons of screening and have made our decisions accordingly. For me personally, the risks of overtreatment are too high. Why do I need to have a ‘conversation’ with my GP? I know full well what her stance would be and that she would try to ‘educate’ me to screen. There are financial incentives for doctors in the UK to ‘encourage’ participation in cervical screening.
By the way, according to UK General Medical Council:
“Doctors have a special duty of care when enrolling an apparently healthy
asymptomatic person in screening programmes, to make him or her aware of the
limitations of screening and the uncertainties, in particular the chance of false
positive and false negative results.
In the case of screening, individuals are not just
consenting to a screening test but to the full screening pathway”
How many doctors consider this statement and acknowledge informed consent?
Summer
As a student interested in epidemiology and in being a GYN surgeon, I have some issues with your post. First, from an epidemiological standpoint, comparing any disease rate between America and sub-Saharan Africa is absurdly dishonest. It completely ignores the differences in our sanitation, HIV/AIDS rates, and healthcare infrastructures. It’s possible screening has a small amount to do with the differences in cervical cancer, but with those other massive inequalities, I’m betting it’s a very small part of it. Second, many things have played a role in the decline of cervical cancer rates in the US. Unlike many others on this forum, I’m aware that screening probably played a role, but the extent of that role has likely been greatly exaggerated. Third, those of us involved in healthcare get to make exactly zero decisions for patients under our care except in cases where there is immediate danger of loss of life or limb, though your post seemed to imply differently.
I do understand what you mean about guidelines and having to talk to patients about it. You don’t know if a patient is interested in screening until you talk to them about it and I understand that due to the way malpractice law is in the US, you have to mention what the guidelines are. For instance, I am over 21. My physician talked to me about paps at my last visit, where she told me she would refuse to do one based on the fact that I’m absurdly low risk due to me having had the HPV vaccines, having a mirena IUD, and never having been sexually active. I doubt most doctors would bother having this conversation with me. Certainly none of the providers I’ve worked with would. Maybe you’re different, and that’s great, but let’s not pretend there isn’t a systemic issue here.
@Feminist Lady,
I agree with your post with one exception – your assumption that we all think the pap test is useless. Many of us do think that the pap test has been beneficial to a small number of women, but as you say, the role that it has played in the decline of the disease has been vastly exaggerated. Personally, I believe the test is as reliable as a chocolate teapot – there seems to be very little science involved and far too much guesswork.
If it is so easy to detect ‘pre-cancer’ in skin samples, why not apply the same process to the rest of the skin, since skin cancer is a much bigger threat?
Why not just hack off any piece of skin which looks ‘abnormal’ in the hope that we’re preventing cancer developing? Sure, you’d end up with practically everyone being ‘treated’ but if the only damage from overtreatment is scarring (because no-one gives a damn about psychological damage, do they?) why not do so if it *saves lives*?
Such a screening process would involve men too, and this kind of blatant disregard for the body is reserved for women only. *Women’s health* is misogyny incarnate.
It worries me that you are keen to become a gyn surgeon, yet you class yourself as a feminist. What we need are people who strive to understand the workings of the female body, stop classing perfectly normal processes (pregnancy, menopause etc.) as *diseases* that *require* medical intervention and try to resolve issues without resorting to surgical procedures. There are enough gynaecologists in the field who are far to quick to slice ‘n dice without any true understanding of the issues involved. The rates of hysterectomy, mastectomy etc. are astronomically high and unless something is done to stop the rot, the time will come when it will be rare for a woman to meet her maker with all of her female organs intact.
There seems to be this strange trend in virgins getting iuds inserted for menstrual problems. A virgin getting an iud inserted is worse than a virgin getting a pap test. It would hurt and be traumatic for some virgins.
Kate, I’m aware some people on this site think paps have their place, hence why I said “many” and not “all” 😉
There is no doubt that conventional Paps were incredibly inaccurate. My dad is a retired pathologist, and he has said repeatedly that the original Pap tests never would have gotten approved today. Thankfully they improved as time went on, but honestly I’m hoping more for the vaccines to eradicate HPV so that screening can become a complete non-issue. The GYNs I’ve worked with have, on average, 40 appointments per day. 30-32 of those appointments are divided between OB appointments and “well woman” exams. Then the other 8-10 appointments will generally be GYN problems, usually medication follow ups, birth control consultations, vaginitis/STI check, a concerning breast lump, abnormal pap or colpo, or mild problems like some wonky bleeding or cramping. When someone comes in with an actual, severe GYN problem, most GYNs have no idea what to do because they spend most of their time doing general, non-surgical care. So yes, I would love for cervical cancer screening to become completely obsolete because I think GYNs have other things they need to worry about.
There is very much a need for GYN surgeons, as endometriosis, adenomyosis, unwanted pregnancy, and painful fibroids and cysts exist. Note, I didn’t say benign fibroids and cysts, I said painful ones. There are also other conditions like bartholin cysts and, in my mother’s case, a very strange and rare birth defect in her pelvis that required surgical reconstruction for her to live a normal, pain-free life. I don’t believe women being in pain is normal or acceptable, and I want to be able to be there for women who are suffering to help them. I have no interest in being someone’s primary care provider or doing yearly exams. I am interested in being the person you come to when you have a problem who can help you fix those problems. I have debilitating chronic pelvic pain myself and am appreciate in of the doctors who have spent time helping me, and I’d like to be able to do that for others in my situation.
Unfortunately, the number of GYNs who know how to adequately treat endometriosis and adenomyosis is barely in the triple digits, while millions of women suffer from these conditions. The avoidance of surgery is actually currently a bad thing in this scenario, as the only treatment proven to effectively treat endometriosis is excision surgery. Surgery of course comes with its cons though, and I would like to see effective non-surgical options arise in the future.
Moo, evidence shows that a mirena IUD can be an effective tool in treating chronic pelvic pain. Researchers are especially hopeful for its use in managing adenomyosis pain, for which the only treatment currently is a hysterectomy. My IUD insertion wasn’t traumatic as I was under anesthesia when it was inserted, but I can imagine it would have been miserable had I been awake for it. Thankfully, none of my doctors wanted to put me through that and all agreed if I wanted to try it, I would need to be sedated for it.
Also to anonymous, there actually is no reason to do a bimanual exam when inserting an IUD, and it’s the best damn contraception around. It’s not for everyone, but it’s very effective at what it’s meant for (preventing pregnancy).
Ack that anonymous reply above this was me! Forgot to type my name in the box!
Why Would You Come On Here….Sounding Like A Paid Parot….
LIke others have indicated here, you genuinely irritate me. And my husband who must type this for me since I’m disabled. I want to add my own comments and clarify the propaganda you self-centered narcissistic miracle workers impose on women.
Why narcissistic? Because it’s not about us; it’s all about you. What you demand a conversation will be. How you decide an office visit will be. How you assume what our sexual activity is.
Answer me, do you prefer the husband is kept out of the process? Since his penis visits my vagina, isn’t he entitled to the same informed consent-err propaganda-so as to help protect me? Or are you afraid you’ll come face to face with an educated man who won’t hesitate to tell you what he thinks of you bullying his wife? And your warped stats?
Informed consent: If you refuse to inform your patients (male and female since the test applies to both) that a urine test for HPV exists that’s both more convenient, acceptable, and more accurate than pap, are you really doing your job? Or just exerting control?
You have “doctored” the stats re HPV and CC rates in the US and elsewhere. Choosing the Netherlands is telling, since other countries nearby that locale have different rates altogether. I feel other readers have already addressed this issue so I’ll stop.
As for women who fight off HPV. If so, as you say, then why the continual pap rodeos where we’re rounded up yearly (not every 3 years) for the same useless, invasive crap? Why do the questions asked differ so much? Often these relate to sexual behavior. If I had to surmise, what’s asked is strictly the whim of the medical provider’s perversion? Do you do this or that? Then it’s asked, do you do that or this?
Why the huge discrepancies in the time used in performing the internal aspect? The skinny, young, attractive ladies get very thorough vaginal & rectal exams while those of use who’ve had kids are barely touched? Cooties? Or sexual attraction?
Do you do all you can to falsely ensure husbands/spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends that there’s no need for them to accompany us? Or instruct a nurse to block them?
Let’s get to Africa. Another lie. In size proportion to that continent. You fail to disclose that AIDS in Africa is a huge epidemic. That with HIV and AIDS, a female has no resistance to any infection or virus. And HPV takes huge advantage there. One could say the lack of medical care also has a deleterious effect on infant survival too but you fail to mention that fact. Worse yet, there’s anti-virals being tested against AIDS, specifically in Africa these are being tested. Why? Patient pool has virtually no other treatments available so the drug’s efficiency is clearly demonstrated.
What was noted? These new anti-virals not only control HIV, slow AIDS, they totally reverse CC and destroy HPV. Noteworthy in a woman already infected and waiting to die. Any reason why you failed to mention these few facts? Hoping to brainwash us?
“Part of your job” is to educate patients to make a decision that’s right for them? I’m telling you, if you were MY doctor, I would tell you without any reservations that I have done all my research and I have made MY decision not to screen. If you failed to accept that, I’d report you and withdraw my services. It is THEIR decision, NOT yours!! Women are NOT public property. This is ridiculous for such a relatively rare cancer, and, how can you state that paps are effective when no randomised control trials were ever introduced to monitor their efficacy? Do you take the same attitude with your male clients? Or are they respected and trusted with all the information to make their own decision? I see although you talk of “educating” your clients – do you advise them to do their own research or do you tell them to make their decision based on all the information that YOU provide? I can tell you I don’t give a darn what the “guidelines” are. I derive my sources from the Lancet, Professor Michael Baum, Professor Angela Raffle and Hazel Thornton – all Cancer Screening Specialists who have now actually admitted that if cervical screening was being reviewed now as opposed to during the late eighties, it’d NEVER make it as a cancer screening programme. I’ll take their word over yours, thanks.
You mention how prevalent CC is in the poorest parts of Africa. There are many NGOs who send doctors, nurses, medications, vaccinations, set up clinics in these regions where there is NO medical care available. People stand in line for hours to get into the clinic.
Who is available to do these many thousands of autopsies? Isn’t treating the living higher priority than the dead in any triage situatioN? Or is it just “I don’t know. She had her nth baby, just wasn’t right. She smelled down there. She didn’t have the energy to eat. It must have been cervical cancer!”
Countries with little resources in Africa and India train nurses or other workers to do a certain method called Visual Inspection With Acetic Acid. There are various manuals online that anyone can access. Women are asked if they want to attend these clinics in their communities. Workers are given limited training. They have metal speculum they sanitize with bleach solution. The acetic acid solution used is made from regular household vinegar. When areas of the cervix are infected with HPV the area shows up white. The workers are trained to determine which women might have more serious problems such as cancer by looking at photos in the manual. Serious cases are referred to hospital if available, if the patient can afford it or a charity will provide it. Other cases that show HPV infection can be treated on the spot with a cyro probe which is dry ice. It burns off the hpv infected skin of the cervix. This type of treatment used to be common in the west until they started using lasers or cutting off parts of the cervix and doing biopsies on the tissue around the edges. Laboratories in these impoverished areas do not have the funds to run cytology slides for pap tests or do huge screening programmes and have gynaecologists doing colposcopy.
I can’t say that I am against the vinegar inspections because this only what these women might get in a lifetime. I am just telling people about so they know. It is also so easy that most women could do it on themselves or a friend and not have to worry they are going to die the next minute from cervical cancer as they are always being told. The results are also private and not in some government registry.
Probably these poor women could also benefit from better sanitation and food. Vitamin B deficiency might be a factor in HPV infection being worse for some people. I have also been told by missionaries that these women also have little access to clean water, proper toilets or any clean items to use for their menstrual flow. Women were using leaves, dirt, grass, dirty rags. There are charities that provide clothes, belts or clothing for women to use during their periods. There are also charities that promote good sanitation, building latrines and methods for obtaining safe drinking water. I would rather concentrate on that having someone tell me I am a naughty girl fir not getting pap tests.
Yes, the improvements in water quality, hygiene, menstrual supplies, and sufficient quantities of food that provides at least the minimum amounts for all nutrients would most likely get them a LOT more in terms of life expectancy. Sure, there’s the ascetic acid method, but we already know that surveillance does NOT prevent CC any more than watching a pot of water will prevent it from boiling. To determine that CC is the cause of death, SOMEONE would have to be doing the autopsy. There aren’t enough trained people to do that.
The IUD I think another excuse to do a pelvic exam and get woman in stirrup s.
There is no Ontario “law” that forces them only to stop sending you reminder letters and to keep “red flagging” at the doctors to get them to harass you. Nobody complains, that’s all. In Alberta the Privacy Commissioner put a stop to not being to opt out completely of both letters and red flagging and a huge total of “19” apparently did. I have complained to the Cancer Privacy Commissioner, got ignored and now I will complain to the Ontario Privacy Commissioner. It’s no different than in Alberta. I told them that I can’t get any health care until 74 apparently because that’s when all cancer screening harassment ends. I will be 61 this December. If I get breast cancer I will demand my rights under Carter vs Canada and won’t get any treatment anyway so why would I need a mammogram.
Hi Vera, you can opt out of receiving reminder letters but you can’t stop Ontario (OHIP) from providing Cancer Cares Ontario (CCO) with your registration and validation for entitlement to OHIP, that right has been removed by the legislations with an agreement between them (OHIP & CCO); so you can’t protect your individual information like home address, DOB, HIN and CCO track your address on-goingly so if you move they have all your previous addresses in their database too. Every time you are tested e.g. pap test your results are put in their huge database, so they can track you where ever you go and your results. These results also track your period, pap smear, STD’s, viruses and the like. Yet you have no say thanks to Politicians and Lobbyist in Queen’s Park – you are right you can’t have services until you are 71. You can opt out of the Ontario Breast Screening program but you have to ask your GP to send to a location that is not part of the Ontario Brest Screening Program so that information is not directly sent to Cancer Cares Ontario. One more point there are other for-profit organizations that have track your pap smears for years through collection of pap test made through agreements, unbeknownst to woman of Ontario, directly with all the Laboratories who process these test and that is all of them currently operating in Ontario.
I live in Ontario and did send in the letter to have the reminders stopped for all screening: cervical, colon and mammograms. But filling in form means they get your name adresss, phone number and insurance number into their database. I did put the family doctor who “fired” me for not having paps on the form. I had phoned in a request years ago so that the pap letters stopped but I wanted the other screening letters not to come once I turned 50.
I use walk-in clinics that have paper files and usually do not get asked about it. So you might avoid harassment by not signing onto a family doctor. When all the clinics are forced onto eHealth electronic files then I expect the harassment to continue again. My neice got her letter from them at age 25. They got her address from the voters list. I think that is a huge violation of privacy.
The problem is the bonus incentives that doctors get. I would go complain to the member of provincial parliament but I do not really want to go on record with my name etc published in parliament. I cannot protect my privacy and protest this. The current minister of health is an MD and wants more money to help those with uncommon diseases. Well he could find a few $million by cancelling the screening bonus payments.
The only true opt out that I found was the receptionist at a naturopath office said all the paps she did were sent to a lab in the US to avoid the reporting to the Ontario database. The naturopath would also treat women who did not have “an active case of cancer”. All these fees were out of pocket for the patient. So pay the naturopath, pay for the lab fee and shipping and pay for the naturopath treatments. This is an expensive option for some but I would still avoid the paps and some of the alternative treatments can be uncomfortable as well.
I have not tried to get a self HPV test here because I doubt that Health Canada would allow it to ship. It is also expensive. Some women buy plastic speculum at a medical supply store and look at their own cervix. I take green tea extract just in case. If I do ever get cancer I would not go for conventional treatments. I know that is not for everyone and I do really feel sorry for women who get caught up in the whole colposcopy/mammogram biopsy merry-go-round. There is plenty of information about almost every disease on the internet.
Under the Ontario Health Care Consent Act or the Alberta Health Information Act you have the legal right to accept or refuse any medical test or procedure or treatment. The Dr has to respect your decision and you cannot be forced into any treatment otherwise that is coercion. I told my Dr that I was refusing all cancer screening and when the practice sent me a letter about paps despite what my chart said I called them and said to stop and they did. If they had persisted and I would have taken it higher. It’s unethical and illegal for them to send reminders after I have made my informed refusal known.
The ontario opt out form only stops the letter and phone calls to you from the Ontario cancer screening. They still send your family doctor a list of who is not up to date and you are still counted on his/her tally for incentive bonus. The opt out form clearly states that “you and your doctor will be responsible for keeping your pap testing up to date”. There is no acknowledgement that you are refusing cancer screening or that your data will be removed. So they doctor can harass you as much as they want or ignore you.
So when a few patients ruin the bonus score then they are usually “fired” from the doctor’s register or illegally removed through the “connect doctor website which only needs a patient’s name, ohip number and date of birth (all these are in a doctor’s files). Sometimes the doctor will refuse to see a patient who does not have cancer screening tests or threatened that they will not longer be their doctor if they refuse. This is why I use walk-in clinics or just avoid medical care and use herbs.
I do not trust a nurse or chaperone that I have never met to protect me from a potential doctor abuser. Knowing that this chaperone is being paid by this person puts zero confidence in the equation. Having a family member, friend or spouse to translate, remind and support a patient is usually welcomed by most doctors.
In Canada just try finding a gynocologist who will do fibroid removal without a hysterectomy. There are very few. Others just will not get the training that is available.
I did look at the Ontario cytobase website. It claims to be the largest medical database in the world. In the “for professionals” section it says that a doctor or “authorized staff” must have patient consent before looking up a patient’s data in cytobase. So if anyone is being constantly harassed then they can send a letter to their doctor that states they do not give them consent to access their cytobase information. This should stop some exchange of info between them. However if a patient is registered with a family doctor they will still count on their bonus incentive tally. I have no found a way around that except for telling them that either the patient is not sexually active or had a hysterectomy.
The cytobase website also has a protocol to request who has accessed their information and process complaints against privacy violations. So once a patient tells a doctor they do not consent to them accessing their data in cytobase this could be done. Probably it has never happened.
I feel like writing a very nasty letter to the woman in charge of cytobase. She probably thinks she is doing something great and does not know all the suffering she has caused me or maybe like my former doctor, she just does not care.
Hi Moo I wrote them and withdrew my consent and I wrote the lab that was sending my results, they both hit the filing under “G” they have a protocol that I can’t break so if you have any other thoughts I would love to hear them. You can write them and insist on what they have on record and believe me it is years and years of your personal data from all over the province includes all your personal identification and Dr who did the test and a significant amount of data collected from the test……… I have run into road block after road block and Cancer Cares Ontario and Cytobase are by far the biggest invader mining your personal information.
Legally I can withdraw consent to a doctor to obtain my info from cytobase, I withdraw consent to cytobase to send me letters or call me BUT I cannot withdraw consent to cyberbase from contacting my doctor or withdraw consent from labs collecting my info. I am confused.
As for labs processing my pap tests that I do not have, no such problem. That was legislated that they can collect info without patient consent. I have a problem with them contacting my family doctor with reminders about my testing (or did sending in the form to stop them sending letters to me also stop them from communicating with my doctors? Anyway if I am not registered with any primary care doctor then they cannot bother me). Once a women gets a pap test anywhere in Ontario then it starts the whole harassment from doctors.
I also use walk-ins for primary care and with this new legislation that is supposedly going to force us to sign up with a doctor I won’t be getting any health care until close to 70 when they stop harassing you. I am going to go to the ER to get my migraine meds when they close the walk-ins and I will tell them I will not sign up as I do not want to be forced to get cancer screening for migraine. I have another prescription that I get at the walk-in and will ask for a referral to a psychiatrist to get that one. The ER might ship me to a neurologist to avoid me coming in all the time with headaches. I already complained to my MPP and he said to tell him if a doctor kicks you out for refusing screening and he will tell the Minister of Health. He didn’t realize it happens quite often as they won’t get their targets. They only let a few of the getting close to 70 women who refuse to opt out and need to coerce everybody else or no bonus.
Vera, make sure you follow up on that offer, report the doctors who try to coerce and pressure you into screening. We need to report, complain and challenge as much as we can, it’s the only way we can get decent healthcare and be treated like an adult, an individual, not just a body. (apparently that’s only our breasts and cervix)
Sorry to hear about the migraines, my older sister has been plagued with terrible migraines since the age of 14, she’s just turned 60. I know she hoped for some relief after menopause but no, they continue…she often gets rebound headaches as a result of the medication too. Doctors are frantic about cc, which is rare, but it’s hard to get decent care for a real issue that can make life unbearable. Thankfully, it now happens once every 3 weeks (still awful) or so, at one stage it was twice a week.
My sister doesn’t have pap testing, she was hassled about them during her frequent consults, but as my sister said, not a good idea to hassle someone about pap tests when they have a migraine! Her doctor dropped the subject years ago…my older sister is quiet and reserved but we call her a sleeping tiger, if she’s challenged, watch out!
My younger sister doesn’t have pap tests either, but sadly, she ended up having an unnecessary cone biopsy before seeing the light.
We’ve all decided not to have breast screening…
Vera: Where are you? Also, these people force you to sign up with a doctor & THEY call what THEY do to YOU? That these doctors are deciding who HAS a doctor & who is “breaking the law” by not having one?
I’d think that just means they don’t have a choice in who their patients are, not that they have full self-determination in what they do to them- whether in or out of a medical setting.
I’m sorry to sound crazy, but does anyone else think they should be given outright training to obey the patient? Not in the sense of jumping out the window on command, but in the sense of desisting when prompted verbally or non-verbally?
I’d think, “You don’t choose for yourself what goes where with other people’s bodies,” would be pretty basic. I’d think it’d be right alongside, “You don’t put an air bubble in someone’s IV, whether you randomly want to or not.” Same deal with not giving someone chemo on a hunch or against someone’s wishes. Same deal with not cutting designs or initials into someone they’re doing surgery on.
What I am also wondering about privacy is what medical records can a court order when a woman is the victim of sexual assault (rape in other countries)? So can the defense lawyers ask for a women’s pap records? I understand they can ask for medical records, counselling records, personal diaries. Reading up in the “Jane Doe, case where a woman sued the Toronto police for using her as “bait” to catch a serial rapist, the defense ordered all her medical records.
I am wondering in a criminal trial what medical records, including pap histories could be ordered by the court. This treatment of women in the “rape culture” often means many women will suffer as victims who will never go to the police to have their rapist charged. A large percentage of sexual assault cases that get to court never result in any convictions. It is often difficult to show that consent was clearly not given or withdrawn and no wonder most people do not understand what consent even means and what conditions render a person unable to give consent. This is a very important conversation.
Yes you are right, this is very scary indeed, particularly in North America, where the lack of efficacy over pap testing does not seem to have reached the brains of most GPs there, or they are starting to realise how useless they actually are, very, very slowly. When reading your comment, I wondered what if a woman had had a number of “abnormal” paps, could a defense lawyer rely on the junk science of pap tests to argue that the test results implied that she had been promiscuous? Screening (just like other “feminist” driven initiatives) has been derived out of misguided feminism, misguided liberalism and a naive belief that medical patriarchy were doing it for “all the right reasons”. It’s similar to laws concerning pregnant women who are attacked and go on to deliver babies that have died as a result of the attack while still in the womb. Such legislation was originally intended to PROTECT pregnant women and hold perpetrators to account, such legislation is now being manipulated in conservative US states to punish pregnant women for their lifestyles. Screening has arrived at the same place – whereby, it has (and continues in some places) been used to punish women. The UK government is now introducing a domestic violence legislation (again, driven by neo-liberal “feminism”) to “protect” women and as someone who works in this field and seen the law being manipulated, I am very concerned. I am dubious of such laws being introduced for womens “best interests” as it is invariably used against them to punish them or try to show that they are incapable or incompetent in some way or another.
Moo, you said that you use walk-in clinics. I understand what you mean. When I was at the er for panic attack , the doctor there gave me a lecture about needing a regular doctor and not to use the er as a walk in only for what they conceder and emergency. It was like they want you to stick to one doctor to make sure your getting check ups and screenings. This was the same attitude I got from a low income syc doctor. He keep pushing me to go get a medical check up. Never again. I only use walk ins they stay focused on the problem at hand not screening. Even though some do ask last pap date they don’t push screening like a regular doctor. And I’m in the Us by the way.
Hi Ladies And Gentiles….I Slipped On A Banana Republic Peel And Fell Into This Site That Is The Polar Opposite Of My Whole Existence….Keep Calm…I Come In Peace..But Not In Political Correctness…..So Don’t Get Your Panties In A Bunch…(If You Even Wear Them) Like I Said…I’d Get My Ghetto Pass Revoked If I Was Caught On A Site Such As This Showing Compassion To You Aliens…As Ingorant As I Seem….And Probably Am…..One Shouldn’t Disregard The Information I Feel Obligated To Share With You Ladies….Yes Im A Black Man…..An Alpha One At That…If You’re A Fem Or Feminist I Just May Be The Best Misogynist Since Al Bundy..I Blame Western Idealism….And Guess What?….I Love Obama And Think Black Lives Matter And High On Kool-Aid….But..I’m A Humanitarian….I Guarantee I’m More Human Than That Droid ‘Summer’……..And The Worst Of My Post Is More Valuable Than That Whole Rebuttal Of Bull By ‘Summer’….So…Sit Back….Listen….Heed Me Or Humor Me….I Care Less…I Won’t Get Cervical Cancer Anytime Soon So…..To That One I’m Led To Enlighten… I Feel Life Throws Me Bones And At Times I’m Not Not Meant To Bury Them….So I Share Them…Here You Go:
I’m Very Educated….I’m A Libra….I.Q. 136…A Philanthropist….A Botanist….And All Sorts Of Other Esteemed Things That Qualifies Me Academically And By Virtue To Feel Confident As Bill Cosby To Drop Some Hidden Gems For You Ladies…With A Testimony Of Experience…My Experience….It Was Christmas 2012….Me And My Wife Were At War With Each Other…I Felt She Breached Her Duties As A Wife And Mother And She Felt Taking Care Of A Get With PTSD Wasn’t In The Marraige Contract….We Hated Each Others Existence At That Time….But Still Physically Sexing…Lol..So….With No Trust We Both Consistently Got Checked Out….As We Fought And Freaked Daily…We Had A Daughter 2 Yrs. Old And I Tell You….From A Man Perspective That Was Raised By All Women….My Wife Breezed Through It From Conception To Delivery….A Happy Prego….Just Post Evils Took Over Her…lol…But She Had A Natural Birth No Epi….Walking Within Hours….No Complications The Whole 9….Sweet As Can Be….Then At Her Six Week Follow Up She Got Her First Pap…Or Sometime A Little After…..Just On A Human Note….My Observation As Her Husband Noticed Something Off After The Procedure….Her Attitude….Her Morale….Honestly It Wasn’t The PPD She Was Not Depressed….I Was….She Wasn’t Herself…I Know It….Our Daughter Knew….She Wasn’t Hearing It…It Got Bad To Worst…Infidelity And Crazyness….I Had Enough…We All Know The Basics With Most Lexical Procedures As Men….Me Being A Need I Knew More Than Average….I Never Understood The Importance Of A Pap Since A Child Learning The Reproductive Systems…Especially The Procedure….It Opposed My Intuitions Young….Now As An Adult…I Had A Reason To Dig The Truth Out This Pap Smear Campaign….So Due To The Hippocratic Oath Medical Professionals Will Go To Hell If They Reveal ‘The Knowledge’ To….. Umm…An Unqualified Individual Such A Myself….Lol…I Know….I Also Know The Cult…And It Is A Cult Ladies….Some Of You Know Exactly Where I’m Going With This Huh?….I Won’t Be A Snitching Serpent But I’ll Finish My Story….So…I Found Out Some Things About Paps That Range From Useless Procedures To Get A Quick Buck To Way Out Procedures To Kill Or Clone….To Make Millions…Or For ‘Mankind’s Sake’…Whatever…What It Did To My Wife….If Devestating….I Eventually Knocked Her Up Again…I Think…She Lost It…Then Again In March….And My God She Was So Evil….I Swear I Thought I Was Satan’s Child….She Was Evil….Nothing Like Our First….Complications Early….Pain….Crampings…Bleeding…Then Her Vagina Fell Out….I’m So Serious…Yall Know About Placinta Previa Right?….Well That Means A Abnormal Cervix….How?….All Of A Sudden?….It Was Horrible….The Fetus Head Was Visible….Then Retreat Back….She Had No Cervix Functionality….My Wife Freaked Out…But Being The King I Am I Know Understanding Of Situations Decreases Stress…I Informed Her About Herself And The Pap Smear And How She And My Daughter Were In Bad Shape….Indeed A Week Later My Wife Water Broke While Sleep….She Didn’t Even Know….And Went To Work….She Past Out From Dehydration And Woke Up In The E.R. Delivering Out 2nd Daughter At 23 Weeks Premie…So….Man Thought They Had A Couple Of Guinea Pigs Thinking My Daughter Wasn’t Going To Make It….But She Did….A Whole Day Out The Placenta In The Womb At 23 Weeks….She Was As Big As My Finger….When Me And My Wife Saw Her In The Incubator….That Evil Spirit Died Immediately And She Broke Down And Said Planned Parenthood Is Satanic….She Was Scheduled To Abort Our Daughter Without My Consent….We Cried For Hours…I Knew It…See The Vigina Is Eden Ladies….If You Look Up The Literal Definition Of Pap Smear It Lets You Know If You Can Read Between Lines….Don’t Let Them Smear Transmitted Demons Inside You Ladies….You’ve Been Warned……P.S. My Daughter Made It….She’s 2..Her Name Is Miracle….And She Is….
… I hate to be that person, but this sounds like a troll. “Planned Parenthood is satanic” my butt. There are valid criticisms of Planned Parenthood, but none of them involve abortions. Also, your wife doesn’t need your consent to do jack with her uterus. 😤
I just don’t get what he is trying to say to us. At best his rather stacato sentences don’t mean anything. He says he’s very intelligent so why is forming basic sentences so difficult for him. I have given him a thumbs down.
Ok then. I hope you’ve learned a thing or two from reading our experiences. Has your wife told you what happened to her at the six-week post delivery office visit?
You have a lot to learn. About time you traded in some of your macho bs for some humble putting your wife first and being there, in person, for her at every gynecological office visit. Could you take her to your o/v when your pants come down?
If you were there, and participated, and if she communicated, then all the talk about the devil would not be happening. You and her would be doing nothing but blessing. You dig?
I think he needs to google a few terms with the photos.
Ok the first baby was no problem. She had a pap following that birth. Maybe she had some procedures. This can cause cervical incompetance.
The second pregnancy was placentia previa which means that the placenta is covering the cervix partially or wholy. This can happen with or without a pap or other medical interference. It is just that the placenta attaches itself in the wrong place. It sometimes moves away from the cervix naturally during the pregnancy. In the case that a woman has a pap when she has the placenta near or on the cervix, miscarriage can happen. Doctors will deny this and claim that paps are safe up to a certain number of weeks into a pregnancy but for some women it is difficult to predict exactly how many weeks they are pregnant.
Good grief – the great liberal country that is Canada with the highest pap rates? I am shocked. I have heard though (from Canadian males) that they are also pretty militant with regards to prostate screening. Is this true? One gentleman told me he underwent prostate exams from the age of 35 onwards and was encouraged to keep on having them. Is this the result of misguided liberalism?! As someone who is considering moving to Canada for work reasons, their enthusiasm for regular paps does intimidate me and is enough to make me reconsider moving at all, although as I get older, I find myself becoming more assertive and less likely to bow to intimidation tactics.
Here, in the UK, there does seem to be a great sea change which I am encouraged by. Just take a look at the article published on the following link on the daily right wing, misogynistic Daily Mail and look at the comments on this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3311679/Alarm-cervical-screening-rates-continue-fall-women-aged-25-49-likely-miss-smear-test.html?offset=0&max=100&jumpTo=comment-105310394#comment-105310394
I’ve had a lengthy hiatus from this site but still continue to post wherever I can on womens health articles.
AQ I stumbled across this article on twitter and couldn’t believe this crap is still being churned out by the Daily Nazi, but then realised that a new report has just recently been published showing that screening coverage has dropped in the UK again to an all time low – 71.2% national UK rate.
I was so cheered up by the comments, and by your fantastic effort in putting the points across. You did a great job. The comments had closed when I found it, but I went through and put arrows in the right directions. Thank you so much for all your work on this. Wonderful to see so many people supporting the cause and shutting the misguided zealots up. They seemed totally flabberghasted they were being voted down.
I know – lol. I call these posters “militant women” (although as you can tell from my own enthusiasm for the debate on informed consent, I am pretty militant in the other sense!). They infuriate me, because to me, they are part of the problem that will never be resolved if they continue to try to shut down debate. Yes, I had a lot of fun posting on that article and I wasn’t in the mood for taking any prisoners! What astonished me the most was the amount of red arrows they received and the amount of green arrows I and fellow posters, Shala and Kiwicelt received. It really does show the mood is changing on cervical screening and I was very encouraged by the “only a third of young women” now have screening.
There was another article not so long ago in the Daily Mail about cervical screening (August/ September I think) which was much less complimentary about screening and it actually tried to educate its readers that smears were useless for adenocarcinomas and not a good idea for the under 25s, so disappointing the DM is trying to revert back to the “all women MUST have smears” mantra.
I would recommend from ,my own experience, for people to comment on womens health articles as much as they can because it seems the message is getting across.
I do wonder about the comment, “my 17 year old daughter has just been diagnosed with cervical cancer”…
I strongly suspect some of these comments are made up to scare women, I doubt a teenager has been diagnosed with cc. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d produced an “abnormal” pap test, a false positive. Given some don’t understand the difference between cc and an abnormal pap test, some assume the latter means WOULD have developed cc or has cc.
The youngest woman here with cc was 21….an adenocarcinoma, she produced a normal pap test, obviously symptomatic, she returned to the GP some months later and produced an abnormal pap test. This young woman then campaigned for young women to have pap tests every two years, when the test probably delayed her diagnosis.
The GP should have focused on her symptoms and a proper investigation, the pap test, a screening test, is for women with NO symptoms. (but is a bad idea anyway for young women and now we know…should be confined to HPV+ women aged 30 to 60)
17 with cc….most unlikely
I think the screening zealots must be worried the old claptrap isn’t working any more…
“Miss” or “Due” makes it sound like “Should”, which is then coercion. Gilead, people. Gilead.
I can’t agree more. Hear in the USA most meadical clinics always ask verbally or on paper the date of last Pap smear and if it was “normal”. ? Sorry I don’t have a date for them because I never had one. It’s insane to me that it’s just something expected .
https://t.co/WbVCNEpRBs
What planet are these people on?
Alex I am in southern Ontario the GTA, the law is supposedly going to force geographical rostering on us so I will lose access to the walk-in I finally found in downtown Toronto where I can get my migraine meds without cancer screening. I also have GAD generalized anxiety disorder so do not wish to live under a cloud of anxiety the rest of my life obsessing about cancer. For e.g. with GAD if you know you have a test in 1 year you think about it every hour for the entire year day and night. It’s a more debilitating thing to have than diabetes or many chronic illnesses but is not treated well, like most mental illness or chronic pain you are not important. All they care about in Ontario is keeping us alive when elderly and decrepit as we are now cash cows for the elder-care and home care industry. They didn’t care about me from age 20-37 when I presented with migraine and went untreated. They would just ask when your pap test was and shine a flashlight in your eyes while you threw up from “fake” headache pain. Doctors in my area cherry pick patients and will not accept you if you have any anxiety meds or pain meds on your file and especially if you are non compliant for cancer testing. I found a decent walk-in that treats me but supposedly will lose the right to any care when they force us to roster under something called “patient care groups”. Canada except for Quebec is the only place in the world where I cannot pay for private care either. My other option is street drugs until I hit 70+ and they stop coercion.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/patients-fart-causes-fire-japanese-operating-theatre-1589097
You just couldn’t make this up. Note the absence of any connotation that this was a LEEP procedure at a colposcopy appointment…
Hello again people,
from what I’ve staudied, pap smear tests detect PREcancerous lesions, as in before cancer even develops! This is why the incidence of cervical cancer is so much lower than before the use of this test.
And let me explain to you why the incidence in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, And Palastine is very low although there’s no real screening system.
In Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic countries in general, Islamic instructions are followed. that means that it’s extremely rare for any sexual relationship to occur before marriage, and thus, it’s also extremely rare for anyone to have the unhealthy multiple relationships! or prostitution (because it’s strictly against Islam and the law). so you don’t find those women and men who have had 15 or whatever amount of relationships (in which they do sleep together actually) before they get married if they ever decided to, or the one night stands or any of that in there. it’s extremely rare and is ugly when it happens.
Turkey also is a muslim country too, maybe not as strict as in Saudi, but yeah, it is still muslim.
Also for Palastine (or what you called “Israel”) I think this has to do with the number of muslim people to jews or others, maybe the Jews made it optional because they’re not as strict as muslims in these cases (as you can see, it has the highest incidence from where the test does not have an official system).
This is a very important factor that shouldn’t be left out of your equation!
now let me tell you the cause for cervical cancer, it’s mainly caused by the Herpes Simples virus, which is transmitted through unhealthy sexual relationships (multiple sexual partners and prostitution,.. etc). so yeah, that’s why it’s very rare in these countries.
I hope that you’d take that into consideration.
I can’t deny that I’m now more interested in this case after reading through some of the blog posts, and that I’ll try on an individual level to do something about it.
Thank you.
Oh Dr Sunshine! We need you. Educate us. Illuminate our brains Save us from ourselves. Please! Your worldly knowledge, You know everything. Your authority. Makes me feel humbled, safe, relaxed, happy, even excited all at the same time! It’a all ok now since you’re involved. Finally I don’t need to worry about pap scrapes and pelvic/vaginal/rectal physical exams. They’re here to save my life. They detect PREcancerous lesions plus cancer itself. Truly, how could I have allowed my unbound cyclical emotions to rule over science? I want to apologize to every doctor, you first, for the false accusations you all suffer from women like me. When you dominate me, it really is for my own good. You’re so considerate too. Jokingly I say “to a fault.” [lol!] You never miss an opportunity; volunteering my body through the photos you take during exams for the medical school students. Your humor during exams makes me giggle. Saying you’re going to make sure my “stove and oven cooks and bakes properly.” I love taking my clothes off and being naked, ready and waiting when you walk in. Nobody else, not even my husband, I’ll allow to interrupt “our time” together. You’re so brave too. Not letting anybody else take away your self appointed mandate. Demanding we have to be examined before you’ll give any birth control. Taking your time, being so thorough, feeling everything inside and outside my body. I don’t know how you keep yourself from also getting aroused. This is a good time to apologize for crying during colposcopy. Just “mind over matter” as you say. Your scolding me for “imagining” what you do ever causes pain has made me a stronger person. And thanks for explaining all the horrible, almost instantly life ending diseases paps diagnose too. All that stink about informed consent too. You tell me what you think I need to know. You deciding what I need, instead of me trying to decide or wasting time asking my husband, it’s better for everybody if doctors make all the decisions.
The above describes the delusion of grandeur that malignantly possesses the minds of so called doctors like you. You wish it like this, like the golden olden days when you were treated like gods.
Here’s a few facts which may clear the propaganda fog from your head. Bullying doctors forced these quack tests on women. No informed consent provided. Only lies, extremely biased information, and ultimatums forced us to accept these medically condoned rapes.
A “real doctor” would also know that it’s Human Papilloma Virus or HPV that causes cc; NOT Herpes Simplex Virus!
And you state caused by “unhealthy sexual relationships…” This illustrates your warped, unrealistic, illogical, prejudicial attitude toward women. Another man on a power trip. Just how do you know? An infected person using the restroom, touching fixtures prior to proper and effective hand washing, effectively spreads this virus onto every surface s/he contacts. Including doctor’s offices, exam rooms, tables, instruments which aren’t stored under sterile conditions. Since men infected with HPV will develop difficult to see penile warts, it’s men who are most likely to spread the virus. Man’s obsession touching, caressing, stroking, rubbing his penis that far more enhances viral spread rather than your idea regarding causation. You also neglect to account for male homosexuals/bisexual activity in viral propagation across gender lines.
A person claiming to be employed in healthcare would also note that males have never been routinely screened for STD’s. Testing usually occurs through self-referral once symptoms become obvious.
The incidence of cc is the same as it was prior to the mandated protocols of blaming women. There never has been any epidemic anywhere. Every doctor objecting to present policies was bullied into submission/compliance. Comparable to using female peers to bully those women resisting this nonsense. You fail to mention dangers of over treatment as well.
As HPV is the usual cause for squamous cc, What about sarcomas which develop from deeper within and grow toward the surface; opposite of how the former comes to be?
You fail to mention that HPV is NOT automatically screened for during pap scrape unless specifically requested? Even abnormal paps are not screened unless requested. DNA of suspected HPV handled similarly.
All these, combined with the barbaric method in which the sample or biopsy is harvested. The machines which score the samples cannot be programmed to analyze with discernment equal to the human eye. The colpo brush used to harvest tissue from the endocervical canal has caused countless spontaneous abortions or miscarriages. The black box warning is often ignored by practitioners. It is even more responsible for spreading the virus past the protective mucus wall. That thick mucus protects the uterus against sperm invading the uterus but it cannot protect against a precontaminated brush.
Hence, all this creates the statistical abominable 53% accuracy rating and our current, vehemently hated revolving door policy in how women are screened. Although the current numbers show an improvement over yearly, both accuracy and voluntary compliance could easily improve.
93% accuracy has already been established, along with near 100% voluntary compliance, by dumping pap and replacing it with self-collected sampling/testing. Three alternatives exist but are deliberately ignored favoring pap. One disgusting reason is that doctors enjoy performing pap/pelvic exams on young women and these exams are financially rewarding.
Major laboratories offer HPV blood tests, plus there’s self-collected urine and/or cervical mucus tests. Trovagene tests a woman’s first morning urine for antibodies and also uses PC technology. The Delphi Screener is a syringe that after vaginal insertion injects a few cc’s sterile saline against the cervix. The woman then pulls the syringe handle to recapture the saline. Along with it come cells from the cervix. These offer 93+% accuracy! Why not use them exclusively?
Your true levels of ignorance, medically, socially, geographically, plus your extreme bias, hatred, and prejudice against Jews and women are plainly seen here too.
Israel is the one and only name for Israel. The landmass was given solely to the Jews by God Himself. God adopted the Jews as His children. It was the Romans who, in an attempt to erase the Jews from history, renamed the land Syria-Palestine.
You have an inflated, unhealthy, unrealistic view of Muslims and the countries they inhabit. Their form of law is called Sharia. Based on the Koran which is then connected to the Hadiths for interpretation and instruction on daily living. Your views extend particularly to Muslim men and the societies of Turkey, Saudi Arabia (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or KSA).
Turkey, thanks to Ataturk, reformed itself after the old Caliphate ended in the 1800’s. The Muslim Brotherhood seemed to die out on its own. Only to come back beginning in the early 1970’s Egypt. Until the election of Prime Minister Recap Erdogan, Turkey was secular. It had a strong relationship with the West; it was also closely allied with Israel. In the last ten years this has radically changed. Past seems to be prologue.
Your comments on sex before marriage, prostitution, STD’s in those societies are polar opposite to decades long accepted norms. These pertain to other Islamic ruled countries plus Iran, which although Islamic ruled called itself Persian.
Essentially what you claim, is just plain wrong. I don’t know what guides or influences you. Or if all this is made up.
Islamic law permits child brides at eight years age. In countries such as Afghanistan, homosexual child abuse is rampant and recently broadcast on Frontline (PBS) where boys are groomed as prostitutes. A divorce is granted under Sharia by saying “I divorce you” three times in succession. Marriages, especially those in ISIS territories besides those in Islamic developed countries come and go quickly. Money is used to negotiate and as incentive since so many families are desperate, subsistence almost impossible.
So not only are plural marriages acceptable, but marriage followed by a quick divorce is also the norm. However it’s likely the male who will have had multiple sexual partners while the female few. This is unique to Islamic populations only. The lack of formal screening, tracking, treatment, follow up education only exacerbates this problem.
While it’s true that women are tightly controlled in every single aspect of daily living, men are not. Premarital sexual experimenting (all forms) is as normal as in Western cultures. Period.
STD’s are equally rampant. In Iran some are at epidemic proportions.
However, due to how women are strictly controlled, it’s the men who “bring it home.” This occurs due to poor safe-sex education, dangerous behaviors including unprotected homosexual sex, or assumptions invincibility. Males may not recognize infection or be afraid to seek medical attention as male STD testing is very painful. Hygiene is another issue. Uncircumcised males are more likely not only to contract STD’s but also to spread them.
Obtaining accurate statistical infection data is difficult. Outsider perception and respect are consider important as these countries, under Sharia, quickly dole out death penalties for sexual offenses. Discretion or silence is preferred. Women under Sharia suffer “honor killings” for perceived sins. So even if the male imported the disease, the female is blamed and severely punished.
There should be no reasons why any of this reply requires censorship.
I hope, Dr Sunshine, you take into consideration everything on this page.
Further, have you ever been present from beginning to end of a pap scrape and pelvic exam?
Do know what happens during, and the after effects on the female?
Have you ever peered into a vagina when a cervix is being scraped?
If not, you have a lot to learn.
The pap scrape and follow on pelvic exam or vaginal exam (with breast exam) is something that provides no medical value for what it takes. To call this a medically condoned rape under guile of authority, along with sexual extortion, is exactly how this should be viewed.
First off, I’ve apologized before for mistakenly mentioning that HSV was the cause instead of HPV (serotypes: 16, 18 most likely)!
Second of all, if you all think it’s rape and it makes you feel uncomfortable, then simply DON’T DO THE TEST!!! just don’t!!
I don’t know what kind of doctors you go to people that makes you feel they’re raping you! I really don’t know what doctor does that. It’s either you go to a bad doctor or you just have sick minds that allows you to think that the doctor is raping you.
I personally think, based on the data and clinical experience, that this test it important. And i will definitely recommend the test for my female patients unless guidelines and significant research show otherwise! end of story for me.
And i wasn’t trying to show that i was the “know it all”, I just happened to see medical advice that I know is wrong and was tying to show the people that it’s not the full story! yes it might be uncomfortable, we’ve been told that it’s extremely uncomfortable and we were given tips on how to make it less overwhelming for the patient.
So if you really care about this test, maybe go to a female doctor, or just don’t do it at all! just don’t convince others that it’s useless without even showing the full picture!
now for the other part of the matter: First, ISIS is not Muslim. ISIS is a terrorist group (formed for political purposes) that is pretending to be Muslim.
Secoond, There was never anything called Israel, read more history please!
Third, Muslim girls don’t get married when they are at 8 years of age, not even close to that! lol. and when muslim men marry 2 or more women (up to 4), they marry women who were never exposed to unhealthy sexual experiments (Because they are unhealthy, whether you liked it or not! and well, unhealthy relationships are what cause such diseases). and btw, divorce is not something that is meant to happen easily, please don’t blurr things out when you know nothing!
I’ve just read about sexual abuse incidents that happened and might happen, and all what I can say is that I’m shocked!
I had no idea that these things could happen. I thought that people who’d spend their lives learning how to save others’ won’t do bad things for others, that they were all noble. I had a totally positive image about all doctors. I thought that life was beautiful and and things like this don’t happen from people who’re supposed to help you.
I’m sorry that things like that happen, I’m sorry if they ever happened to any of you. I don’t know what to say more about this world. you don’t have sick minds, I’m sorry, I just had a totally optimistic view of this world.
This is just so sad.
Dr, unfortunately you are still deadheaded in the wrong direction. Paps do not work. At 53% accuracy. If it were a men’s test, never would ever be accepted into a medical norm. The DRE has been d/c; but pap scrape/pelvic exams still going strong. There are so many subjective waypoints, so to speak, from how the instruments are stored, to how specimens are collected, to the scrape which is then followed by the only “smear” part of the test (which does NOT involve my vagina), and even to how they are interpreted, re-sampled by machine and/or human pathologist, and finally scored. Even the scoring can be corrupted. A woman seen at a public clinic is much more likely to be sent for immediate colposcopy before she can think twice due to the practitioner needing a quantity to treat for license upkeep. My advice to you: Go back and skim the old comments. You will learn more here than anywhere else. If you invest the time on these associated sites, you will be rewarded with an education. Hopefully you’ll walk away a different person too.
“Authority corrupts, and absolute authority absolutely corrupts.” This applies to doctors more so than it does politicians. The group accepted into med school thrives on competition. There, most personalities are molded into a perverse, uncaring, demanding, and demeaning mind set. They come to unquestionably believe in their training, their science, and develop tunnel vision. If you don’t want to open your eyes you won’t see anything. Same applies to their hearing.
The empathy they are supposed to have becomes so secondary it almost ceases to exist. They graduate nearly bankrupt, very frustrated, and already angry at the system, patients who don’t pay, and having to do more work because people truly feel pain. Especially children. Yet they always wonder why their profession has such high divorce rates.
At the hospital they receive free covered parking, free lunch, a quite place to get away, they are regarded as and treated like gods. Catered to. Worshiped. Anybody pisses them off, one call that person’s fired. The god complex is constantly reinforced. They learned in med school how to manipulate via multiple syllabled words, authoritative tones, and simply imposing their voice and might. Those who chose, and most do, can throughout their careers order young women to strip and allow them to perform any exam they desire, and at any time. A pre-op is always a great time to take advantage to “rule out” anything in the reproductive tract. Even if the doctor is operating on something totally unrelated and located far away. If in a hospital they can order the advocate or husband out of the room. Nobody left to truly protect the patient. To question unnecessary and sexually related exams. In the delivery room, when this happens, it’s where divorces take root. Doctors are known to be cruel in the delivery room. It’s too bad they cannot be recorded and have their licenses revoked. It’s where they also degrade patients when that patient is under anesthesia. Except in one case, where the patient was awake and later sued.
My husband’s former best friend is an anesthesiologist in Huntsville AL.
Six years ago my husband was molested by two nurses while at least two others watched, and where the anesthesiologist also participated. We are medically educated. For his hernia surgery, we did the shaving at home. No hair from rib cage down. My husband was pre sedated, tied down to his gurney, eyes covered, and gown loosened. He is alone; away from me.
Come the nurses for the prep. One rips the gown off. He later remarked it was done so fast his nipples hardened at the sudden generated cold breeze. She proceeded then to grab his penis and gave him a hand job. Another lifts his hairless testicles and plays with them as one would gauge in their hand whether an envelope required a second stamp for mailing. The first nurse changes sides. She rubbed, caressed, you get it, better than my hubby says he does it himself. He became hard as rock. The other now begins to paint his abdomen with the orange, alcohol laced goo. She drops the applicator twice. First time it bounces around, ending up back on her tray. Second time it lands on the floor. She comments, “I guess the three-second rule applies here…” and they all laugh. She again picks it up and continues. Before my husband ejaculated he regained enough senses to flip them off with both hands. Immediately the nurses stepped away. At this point he felt the air move as another “professional” stepped up, picked up his IV line, and he later awoke in Recovery Room.
Our former friend even stayed with us 20+ years earlier during his residency. It was then my husband discovered it now took 5 tries to get the truth out of him regarding any medical procedure. The evasiveness, the lying, then the cold sarcasm relating how, why, a procedure is done, why there’s pain and blood, along with a his sickening facial sneer,…a real awakening about what med school really does. This guy is the son of a pastor. A very nice family. One my husband always admired and looked up to. His friend was still a good friend otherwise. But medical issues? Thankfully his opinion regarding children and pain changed once he got married and had his own kids.
However, he too, just like you, has a warped opinion of young women and gyn problems. Neither of you can imagine the unwarranted medical procedures performed due to false results thanks to 53% accuracy pap. The end of the line is hysterectomy and chronic pain. Recently this happened to a friend’s daughter.
In these cases, what is the real problem? The male lover/husband’s sperm? Allergies? Hormones? A continually aging cervix? Douching, tampons? Industrial exposure? Any of these can be causation. But ill designed tests only lead to more unnecessary treatments.
Why is a pregnant woman pap’ed? At first visit and last visit. Why? Stupid defensive medicine. At a time when her cervix is likely to have abnormal cells that are actually normal given the situation. Leave it to doctors hell bent on vaginas to screw things up permanently. The woman is scarred. Her husband is scarred. Both mentally and physically. Never will either have a normal sex life with the other again. She will never enjoy a normal orgasm again. She will gain minimum 25 pounds afterward. But I digressed. Back to what I was saying.
Why don’t doctors truthfully disclose how long patients are naked before and after surgery? The former friend did his usual lying, even glibly claiming “We protect your dignity. We do what we can.” He continually denied a patient is ever naked. And if necessary for just seconds or a couple minutes.
When my hubby told M. ***** ******** MD about this, his former friend couldn’t stop laughing. [how is sexual abuse so amusing?!] Finally, my husband confronted him. We have the texts. My husband begged for truth, for simple answers. He begged for his friend to empathize. Repeatedly. Instead, my husband received venom and all blame. As if he enjoyed it, wanted it, encouraged it, and then whined afterward. The “good doctor” replied, complaining that they (nurses and doctors) see genitals all day, and what were they supposed to do, cancel the surgery? It would ruin their schedule. And just because you had an erection. Finally? He claimed “it is incompatible with my experiences.” Incredible. So. That’s it. If HE says it doesn’t happen then that’s why it does happen. Because doctors and nurses feed off it; knowing they can get away with it. Which is probably why it was so amusing too. Although we dare not ask. Once he was further confronted, he did what is predictable for doctors to do. He’s ignored us. Ran away where he will only get positive strokes for his golden words and works.
There’s a site called Student Doctor Network. A thread was started discussing performing exams on anesthetized patients w/o consent. Invasive exams including pelvic exams. These “new” doctors felt it was in their rights to do these exams. The patient was there, they were receiving treatment, anesthetized, and so what, what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them. If staff should do the right thing and complain, the following story discussing what happens.
Take a look at Twana Sparks MD out of New Mexico.
This is the mindset US med schools germinate in those who determine our medical standards.
Look at your first foray here. Can you find anything in it that’s positive toward women? That’s redeeming to our society? No. Instead, you lavish praises on the most repressive, physically and mentally abusive regimes and societies on earth. Where women ARE second class citizens at best. No rights; forced into anything and everything. Beaten and raped if their hair isn’t totally covered. Then they are publicly blamed, whipped, and some later beheaded in an honor killing for bringing shame to the family. Who and what do you think you are?
If that’s so great to you, go there. Permanently.
Do you see the comparative arrogances between yourself and the former best friend?
You do NOT get it regarding my thoughts expressed on this site and regarding the pap scrape/pelvic exam. And, you really are a doctor? This genuinely confuses me. The exam is painful, humiliating, mentally and physically scarring. It is inaccurate; inducing 50% false results. It is forced upon any woman wanting birth control. There is no single requirement, medical necessity, nor benefit for women. It does benefit doctors sexually and financially. It forces us to discuss our sexual habits whether we want to or not. This is a medically condoned rape. The bimanual, rectovaginal, where every single sexual part we own is forcefully stimulated, causing us to lubricate, engorge, sexually arouse,…etc. How would like a prostate exam performed where you were pumped up to full volume and forced to leak down your penis? While every one watched from less than one foot away? Being told to “scoot down more…” while they watch us hump down the table staring at us until we hang off that table in the stirrups.
Did you know female practitioners abuse and molest as males do? They are practically immune to prosecution. What, our words against theirs. Men do get arrested but never women. A lesbian in that position can do anything she wants. She knows how far she can go, fooling with our minds and our bodies. Leaving us puzzled and frazzled but we come back next year.
Would you scrape the filth off your skinned-up knee after a fall? Never. Yet, during pap the single layer of cells which protect us from deep HPV infection are scraped away. If we are infected the chance of fighting it off are now zero. The colpo brush does same with the endocervical canal.
I’m not going into colposcopy and further treatments. Not this time anyway.
Trovagene and Delphi Screener are easy to find. So is the chiropracter in Chicago who treats diseased cervix’ w/o amputating LEEP & Cold Knife nor cryosurgery.
No doctor cares about an 85 year old woman having CC. No thrill in that exam. Refer her to Oncology. This happened to my husband’s aunt in Canada. Radiation roasted not only her cervix but also her pelvis and now she’s wheelchair bound. What a cure!
As a doctor you do more than simply advise. You force the ultimatum as there’s no alternative you offer. To you it’s good, and still is in your opinion even after I tell you it’s 53% accurate! Your mind set… The infection rate? Death rate? Same as it was in the 50’s before pap imposed.
Simply going to a female md? No. Simply not forcing pap. Simply offering us full informed consent and ALTERNATIVES which, if your industry representative groups didn’t politically squash we would have open access. What’s next from you? Will you deny ever becoming aroused while performing these exams on young women? Will you claim to be able to feel ovaries etc on women when literature in med school texts clearly state you can’t—except in skinny young women. The kind which is ordered into stirrups, gets the most thorough time consuming exams, yet when 40, 50 these exams turn into the least desired procedure the doctor wants to do.
How many times have you accidentally stroked a clitoris? Or watched a woman’s nipples while you stroked-no appreciated-no examined her anterior and posterior cervical fornix’? You know you made her feel very full. Do you watch to see and feel and smell if she lubricates, gets blushed, averts your glaring eyes? And you’re not hard as rock? Doctors squeeze nipples as well; as if a woman can’t notice her breasts leaking suspicious fluids. That practice causes oxytocin secretion and arousal.
Don’t tell me what I have experienced or have not experienced. If you’re a male, you’ve become as aroused as you’ve made us. It’s a chemical reaction you detect straight from our vaginas. You cannot block it. I’ve read the university level text books advising such.
I have showed much more a complete picture of pap here than has ever been shown to me in any medical office. Including what you carefully avoid mentioning. Hence, you state it’s the best thing or best method to date. AS if you’re now a woman’s advocate. Yep, another way of end running our defenses. Deny there’s any alternatives so we’re stuck with the same old same old.
That’s not “informed consent.” After all, why didn’t you tell me these things and let me chose for myself, doctor? Instead, your ‘shared decision making” involves only that info you want me to know so I’ll give the consent you want in return. Bait and Switch; a used car dealer tactic. Shame on all doctors.
Regarding islam. Are you a Muslim? You know much about its practices and beliefs. If so, that explains your explicit denial of Israel. Further, a true Muslim never criticizes Islam. A true practicing Muslim is allowed to lie about the true practices of Islam to an infidel. Anything to convince and further Islam. Your duty. So, liar, before you lecture me, understand something. I already know. My husband was one of those who got to meet the 9/11 highjackers in Southern CA. Something not to forget but to tell everybody we meet. Afterward, we thoroughly investigated Islam.
Advise you read Gatestone Group, Dan Pipes, Cinnamon Stillwell, Mid East Forum, Campus Watch, etc.
ISIS is part of Muslim Brotherhood. It is Islam. A militant part believing as well that society should “go back to the future.” Literally. The beheadings we saw performed while quoting Islam, the not so or the un-holy Koran so to speak, the beards, the Yizidi women auctioned off as slaves or war booty as infidels are treated… Yep it’s all Islam.
Where homosexuality is forbidden yet imans gave permission for a young man to practice it, thanking allah afterward, so his rectum could be repeatedly stretched and later packed with TNT which he then used in an attempt to kill a Saudi Royal Family member and government official. I saw the aftermath picture.
Young girls are married off at 8 years age. Muhammad’s first and favorite wife Aaliyah was that age when he married her. But he waited until she was 12 before he “took” her. Saudi religious official said in 2014 that so long as the girl is old enough/large enough to support her husband’s weight sex is permissible. This story came to light after a 12 year old girl was repeatedly caught hiding from her 70+ year old husband. Again, Frontline on PBS.
What I said regarding divorce, disease, STD’s over there, it’s all true. Your simple and rude denial of it here matters not one bit to me.
Divorce Islamic style. Easily done; and I’m not trying to make it look that way. ISIS fighters have “passed around” women there by performing the Islamic divorce ritual. The Koran does make problem solving involving women easy to do.
Recently, this has also happened with the immigrants in Germany. The German court system is under siege. It has allowed Sharia courts to emerge and Islamic societies within societies have already developed. The Muslims didn’t see their movement into Europe as immigration. They view it as a promised invasion. They have no desire to assimilate. Same problem in France and in Australia. And it’s happening here too. Seems the Bhuddists have the answer in Myanmar. Islamists understand and respect violence. In UK, and here, Muslims when strong in number run for government office. They then talk about laws against “offending religions.” Islam is the only true religion, the only religion to Muslims. There must be tolerance, dress codes, no more music, schools must have meals made Muslim friendly, holidays must be respected, it doesn’t stop. What I’m describing is present day France. A group of Somali immigrants tried in vain in 2014 to force factory meat processors in the Mid West US to shut down for prayers. Reminds me of the Borg on Star Trek The Next Generation.
Jesus reformed the Old Testament via the New Testament. This has never happened with Islam. That’s why the Islamists view violence as chic.
Devout Islamists who believe the caliphate needs only the last piece as well as moderate Muslims who aren’t regarded as devout (and could be killed as infidels) do believe in Moses, Jesus, etc. The two religions share many landmarks, even with Christians. Jerusalem, the traditional capital of Israel is one of those places.
I can go further. Esau, the brother who forfeited his birthright to his younger brother eventually married an Edomite. The peoples of modern day Saudi Arabia. Yet, the two brothers got together to bury their mother. Israel existed back then. History says so.
The Bible and the people in it can be tracked through time. Islamic history can’t. There was a debate I watched on the Glazov Group. There, a UK Islamist named Choudary claimed the Koran must be interpreted through the Hadiths. However, nobody can connect the time line. It seems that the Hadiths were written long after Mohammad’s death. So while he wrote the Koran he didn’t author the Hadiths. Fascinating stuff.
Unfortunately, you and I will never agree on religious matters. We may tolerate each other. In reading Revelations and studying Islam, it becomes apparent that the leader of your caliphate is just about equal to our antichrist.
There is a verse in Jeremiah. It goes like this. He who Blesses Israel will be Blessed. He who curses Israel will be himself cursed.
You discuss Islamic women being healthy for marriage vs Western women with unhealthy practices. Who was it that had sex with sheep? The woman or man?
And is what your’e claiming, the pristine quality of a Muslim woman, is that a valid excuse for how she’s treated, segregated, controlled like a dog, beaten or murdered at husband or father or brother’s whim for “honor”? That makes it A-OK? I feel sorry for those women.
Because you control them, you’ll never know, understand, nor experience free love which we have here. A woman who freely picks her husband, and vice versa instead of the Islamic practice of arranged marriages (some deals made at birth).
I wish you peace. As a doctor though, I wish you could open your mind. Re-educate yourself about the things so emphatically discussed here.
Oh and I missed one exetremly important point! Diseases don’t have similar incidence around the world. They depend on many factors inclusing: the age, sex, ethnicity, specific genes, socioeconomic status, and place of residence for enviromental factors (or in cases of infections, the presence of the organism causing the infection in any part of the world).
so that’s another important factor as well.
The women and men networking the truth here come from UK, Europe, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Far East, etc. We have been discussing every aspect of this. We also discuss the latest cures.
Last year an oral medication was tested in Africa on women. These women were suffering from AIDS. An antiviral was being tested. Not only did the med work on HPV, but it also wiped out already established CC. Yet there’s no mention of the drug nor further studies here. Why?
It seems vested political, financial, and other (perhaps sexual) interests are being protected at women’s expense.
There is a DC in Chicago who successfully kills CC w/o surgery (amputation). His chemical compound should be studied. He has photos documenting long-term success.
Yet he too is ignored.
A pathologist in Australia stated on 9/27/16 The Sydney Morning Herald that CIN 1, 2, even 3 will resolve spontaneously if left alone. He said the new examination guidelines are correct. That dysplasia is a young woman’s disease. But it too resolves on its own if given enough time.
He disclosed that the highest rate of cc is in 85 year old women. These cancers are sarcomas. They grow from deep within. Soft tissue cancers that can’t be detected by pap nor can they be felt by pelvic until way too late.
Most importantly, and strikingly is that he agreed with women here that over treatment is more dangerous than cc itself. His opinion that all the surgeries or biopsies as wrongly stated by doctors are, in fact, amputations. They leave a young woman with an incomplete cervix. She will never be able to carry a pregnancy to term. She will also suffer from miscarriages, and many more problems with day to day living.
Understand something here too, a precancer is not the same as a cancer.
Women have been threatened, ordered, to undergo immediate diagnostic or surgery when it would take 4-10 years for any disease threat to manifest. So what’s the rush?
Why all the lying? If the disease is bona fide, the truth alone would suffice.
Remember this too, men (or women) suffer right along with their respective women.
“A pathologist in Australia stated on 9/27/16 The Sydney Morning Herald that CIN 1, 2, even 3 will resolve spontaneously if left alone”. If that was true, then that’s a great discovery, I would totally support such discovery! And also for the other treatments that you stated, it’d be great if you gave me the names or I’ll have to search for them on my own.
I think I came up with a conclusion here, your concern is that it’s an invasive procedure and you feel uncomfortable doing it.
For the first part, there seems to be a great amount of research that could be done to change the procedure, which can be achieved if awereness about this issue was spread between healthcare providers.
for the second part, and as there still is not offficial research to support the cause, you either will have to do it the way it is (just try to switch to a female doctor if it makes you more comfortable), or don’t do it on your own risk for now (because up to this day, it actually shows that it’s effective).
I’ve never really commented on anything before, I’m really sorry for being aggressive at times. Maybe it seemed like I was trying to push my opinion on you people, but it was not the case. It just seems like people are not getting what I meant to say.
And I’m planning on doing a research in the future, this blog definitely made me think about this topic for a research (Don’t know if it’s going to be so helpful if I managed to do it, but I’ll try my best to at least induce a change!).
What I’m trying to say is, there’re people who’d want a change if something was causing a problem when they were not aware of it, such as this. not all doctors think about how to get more money! And maybe if enough awereness was spread between healthcare providers, we can overcome this issue and find better solutions.
I’m also fighting for other causes, one of them that I’m trying to induce a change (even if it was in the circle of people (whether doctors or others) is the case of doctors prescribing antibiotics for everything without caring about the consequences of this action (it happens a lot where I live).
I noticed that when I got into medicine, I felt like I have to correct everythin, which led me into different events (this being one of them). I sometimes think, am I wrong for doing this? but i guess I’m not, because I do this out of caring for people! I really do! even if I came of as arrogant, this was the cause for this all, and like other cases, it led me into thinking about things differently, correcting my own view to make it bigger and better. This is why arguments are important, they make you view things in new ways if you actually listened.
This was an apology for any offensive comment that I made. I must say that after thinking that this blog was something bad, especially for people who don’t know what screening is and how important it is, i now would that this blog because it made me see things that I didn’t see when I studied this procedure, that there could be new procedures that are more patient friendly, that this procedure is not enough and that we should still look for better ways.
Just remember something, change needs time, it doesn’t come easily. So for now, be patient, and hopefully more people would listen to this.
I am grateful that what I wrote was not censored. What’s been lost in Europe, Canada, and many places here, once gone won’t reappear w/o a dangerous confrontation. Free speech is where we learn mutual respect. Where I live in Southern CA USA, one cannot criticize illegal alien problems w/o being labeled racist etc. In reality, it’s the illegals and their advocates who refuse to accept any opinion outside their own dogma. Illegal immigrants are given free college education because they are now regarded as life-long victims. US tv & paper media, the now referred to as “the so-called “free press”” kowtows to illegal aliens, terrorist-funded Islamist causes (CAIR-backed by Hamas), Liberal causes, and worst of all, militant women’s groups that push pap, mammography, and abortion. Why is this important? At this site?
The lost free exchanges of ideas has crippled my home country from educating and updating itself. This site is so important to women, men, and children. Here we talk, emphatically, and we exchange information. We research each other, and we learn. Eventually the news will spread. Officials will turn and open their minds. Change, positive advancement, hope, a better tomorrow. It’s why before US choked, and bankrupted its identity, we lead the world in so many ways.
That doesn’t mean we didn’t need correction.
i’m so grateful for these sites.
For those who stay ignorant, history repeats itself. Old lessons must learned anew, again.
There’s a couple things I forgot which I want to add. Lesbian relationships flourish in the Middle East equal to that found in Vancouver BC or San Francisco. However they are kept absolutely secret. Only in Turkey, where women are allowed more freedom of expression and movement is this barely, minimally, tolerated.
Women are beautiful creatures. I’ve said many times they are God’s finest creation. He made woman for man. Nothing equals a woman. She does complete man. He is lost without her. I can easily understand why women are at least bisexual or curious even just once.
RE antibiotics. I can’t opine re Middle Eastern practices. Here however, the problem isn’t with pediatricians. It’s with commercialized meat production. I’ve commented here re beef feed lots and in how chickens are likewise grown and processed. For decades animals have been provided non-therapeutic antibiotics in their feed. Their natural healthy diets replaced with industrialized grains their systems cannot deal with. Finally now science has paid attention to the health fanatics. The natural diets provide nutritious sources for our own consumption; as these animals when kept healthy and happy… (I’m also very respectfully addressing vegetarians and vegans) …as we consume them we’re kept healthy. We are what we eat.
Dr Sunshine. There are things here which express human, female emotions and physical felt pain in the rawest manner possible. Likewise, the perspective doctors experience. What I wrote was also raw and I meant for you to feel what I’ve experienced at the hands of doctors. In past postings, I’ve described how I felt, how my husband has felt as we were betrayed. No doubt others here identify. One of my past physicians recently plead guilty to multiple offenses using his authority to sexually violate women. I’ve related in past posts how we’ve caught other doctors trying to use an exam for their own sexual enjoyment. I hope you read them.
Every woman here, and her lover, girlfriend, husband, etc, has a mandate that these exams are stopped because only then will society be able to see their doctor w/o being terrified that yet another medically condoned rape is about to take place.
If you take up this cause, demanding that change happens, then no doubt you will have won our admiration and respect. Come that day, we will become peers.
This whole conversation is making me laugh. Especially “ISIS are not real muslims”. I have read the koran. I know what it says.
Predominantly muslim countries also have cervical cancer, STI, and men and women who are raped. They just fail to keep statistics. They also execute or torture women who are raped if they report rape. So it is not reported. Men would not report rape either because they would be executed as homosexuals.
Regular people get herpes and STIs and not just “prostitutes” and people who have “immoral” relationships. Really I hope this medical student takes a speciality that does not involve the sexual organs being so judgemental of her patients.
But then any doctor can abuse. There was an eye doctor caught in Canada abusing patients by ejaculating in their face while examining their eyes in a dark room.
My dear dr sunshine, until you stop thinking as a brainwashed student and use your own sense of logic and reasoning, and look at it from both points of view there is no way the women on here will take you seriously or give you credence, I suggest that you reavaluate your stance on the subject and look at it with a more open mind, taking”all” medical research into account, after doing this and your opinion does not alter I’m afraid that on this site your presence on here would be as appreciated as a Pap smear.