This post has been created to provide an additional forum for discussion, and is a continuation of the old Blogcritics’ Unnecessary Pap Smears discussion. The original Blogcritics Unnecessary Pap Smears discussion had more than 10,000 comments, but the comments were deleted following changes to the Blogcritics’ site.
Fortunately, the comments from Blogcritics have since been recovered and are preserved here: http://unnecessarypapsmears.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/over-10000-lost-comments-on-unnecessary-pap-smears-find-a-home/ This post also provides a ‘part three’ continuation of the ‘part two’ discussion forum that exists on this site: https://forwomenseyesonly.com/2013/09/22/discussion-forum/
Thank you Alex for suggesting the addition of an open forum devoted to discussion on this blog.
forwomenseyesonly 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48580037
Hundreds of UK men are trying out a new screening test for prostate cancer to see if it should eventually be offered routinely on the NHS.
The test is a non-invasive MRI scan that takes images of the inside of the body to check for any abnormal growths.
Scientists running the trial say it will take a few years to know if MRI will be better than available blood tests and biopsies at spotting cancers.
It is good to have non-invasive tests, it is a dam shame they won’t apply this to women’s CC screening!
Off topic but kinda tying in with your point Chas…
I turned 55 in March..age eligible to get the camera shoved up my bum woo hoo!
Today I get a letter from them saying as I didn’t return my slip they assume I don’t wish to screen ( they got that right!) Though I never received the ” invitation ” or form! Not that I’m bothered…
I just rang to opt out and it was no problem thank you for letting us know we’ll put the disclaimer in the post to you!!
Now why can’t they develop a non invasive test for that? And its a totally different story declining smears though to be fair I had less hassle over the forms than some on here…..
Looks like screening programmes that affect both men and women are easier to opt out. Trying to opt out of breast crushing (mammograms) or cervix scraping (paps) is much more hassle. The system just won’t take women’s ‘no’ for an answer.
In US you can swallow a camera. It takes pics and transmits them to sensors you wear outside. Better than having my asshole snaked out.
The “camera” you swallow is called Cologuard and it costs about $650. I don’t believe it’s covered under any
insurance but Medicare (for those 65 and older) will pay for it.
No, no. The non-invasive test for women won’t happen. It’s too much fun to look at and penetrate her vagina. Besides, raping people periodically makes them more likely to submit in the future…. as every rapist knows.
Has anyone actually had an”invitation ” to the one off screening at 55? I never even received mine but the reminder was worded as of a slot had been booked 4 me and I was to return a slip if I “accepted” the “invitation “. They said they wouldn’t “invite ” me again but I could have the test anytime between now and 60 if I chose.
I think with breast crushing you are sent 2 “invitations ” before they give up for that screening cycle?
Hi Kat,
We have not had the new bowel screening kit. My husband received the older test which needs 3 “swipes” on his 60th birthday 2 years ago. He didn’t do it, so maybe gets another for his birthday this year? I’m 57 and have never received a bowel screening kit of any kind so far.
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/12/talking-about-cell-changes-during-cervical-screening-awareness-week-2019-a-view-from-jos-cervical-cancer-trust/
Wow – They are finally discussing the fear effects of women with so called abnormal cells!!
“Falling between the gap of cervical screening and cervical cancer, the needs of women with cell changes can sometimes be overlooked.”
“Cell changes are relatively common. In fact, more than 200,000 women will have them each year in the UK.” (HOPEFULLY….SOME WOMEN WILL LOOK AT THIS FIGURE….& THINK HANG ON A MINUTE/ALARM BELLS RINGING)
“However for many women, a diagnosis of cell changes can be a very confusing and scary time.” (NO SHIT SHERLOCK)
“We are absolutely not trying to dissuade women from attending cervical screening or recommended treatment” (I’M DISSUADED EVEN MORE READING THIS CRAP!)
I have made a comment but they probably will not allow it public as most of mine do not get through, so here is what I said:
It is good to finally see discussion on the mental effects of women when receiving an abnormal test! Also you have pointed out that there are around 200,000 abnormal results per year, this is the part I find alarming as there is no way this amount would ever get cervical cancer, I feel this should actually be printed in the leaflet “helping you decide”. If you truly want to give women the chance to make their own informed decisions, this will help them. Along with this information women would like more honesty that cervical cancer is not and never was the No.1 killer of women, and that most abnormal cell treatment is in fact over treatment, also please include an opt-out slip with the invites as it still remains difficult to firmly opt-out (my 2 requests in writing have been ignored). Having said all that I am pleased that a discussion is finally here about how women feel when they get their abnormal result, as so many women around me have “had a cancer scare” or claim “I wouldn’t be here today etc” thinking they were/are going to die when most will not or ever would, it is a cruel screening programme that spends an enormous amount of money on a test that is at best 53% accurate. More honesty is important in all screening, especially this one. I would like to see my post made public here as you seem to block most of mine!
This is an excellent response and I hope so much it gets published. Petr Skrabanek was right about screening being unethical when he said that populations need to be coerced into attending or there would be little voluntary uptake and the programmes wouldn’t be viable. Threats, bullying and dishonesty are all an integral part of our cancer screening programmes.
No such luck with them letting my post through! I got an email stating the following:
“We’ve noted your comments but our position remains the same. We will continue to read any messages that you send and reply if those messages raise new issues on which we can provide advice.”
Oh what a surprise!
I noticed your excellent response still hasn’t gone up. It should be there.
I posted the following today, I doubt it will go up but it’s worth a shot: “In one instance, a quote used in the promotional literature, the patient states they were given LLETZ treatment without their knowledge and without consent. This is usually considered battery and is a crime.
What support is being offered to those harmed or who wish to make complaints about the program?”
Its disgusting that so many women are worried senseless by these so called cell changes. A few go on to get cancer (I wont quote a number as no one knows) I think this information should be put in the crappy ‘helping you decide’ brochure. I wish women would wake up to this cruel treadmill we are all on.
I thought the HPV test put an end to all this uncertainty anyway. or is that a load of nonsense as well.
It is cruel & vile, I myself almost lost the plot over “cell changes”, had apt for colposcopy & probably would have been treated…………….so glad I said No! I was in menopause. I can’t imagine receiving treatment on any internal organ on a mere maybe!
This HPV test worries me as it has increased the colposcopy workload which presumably will increase the treatment rates….making the programme continue to look successful!
I have decided for me that ALL screening is nonsense & I will only seek help & act on symptoms…..I’ll add a maybe in there as I have little trust anymore, feel happier attempting to fix my own health issues now.
But it is good to see that the effects on women are at long last being discussed/acknowledged, albeit from that shite site Jo’s Tosh! However, the NHS do direct women to Jo’s….I hope more women wise up to this suspicious test? Time will tell!
It will b interesting to see if HPV rates drop due to more vaccinated ppl of both sexes….and if more women walk away from the screening programme ..
What will said programme do next??
In the latest Jo’s propaganda video they have a lady talking about side effects from her treatment for abnormal cells. In it she talks about the ‘next stage being cancer’. I don’t believe she mentions her HPV status in it which is potentially misleading.
I think for now HPV testing and relevancy is being glossed over in an attempt to keep women in the program and get them through the door.
I think they’re very worried about the low uptake amongst the under 30s, and it’s noticeable that all the propaganda this year has been targetted at them. I think they’ve given up with us middle-aged. They know most of us have had totally unnacceptable bullying and harrassment from the beginning and are never going to forgive them for it. Too many women dropping off the programme at either end leaves it very vulnerable.
As costs are one item discussed here, their costs in the US for-profit healthcare system is nothing to sneeze at – and in some cases are absolutely OUTRAGEOUS! Look at https://health.costhelper.com/pap-test-comments-1.html where women report costs being under $100 in some cases and OVER $2000 in others! That’s even WITH insurance. Who can afford that, and anyone who has ever tried to get a price list or expected cost from a healthcare provider knows that that information is unavailable or wildly inaccurate!
I remember an episode of the doctors a few years back. Doctor Lisa the Obgyn was saying if woman have anal sex they need to tell there gynecologist because they need a anal Pap smear too. WTH I’m scared to know what an abnormal anal pap whould be followed by. Hell to the no.
I’ve heard that too, and that men having anal sex with other men need to have anal pap smears. Then again, one of the warnings out there about anal sex is that the rectum is extremely thin and VERY easy to tear, and those tears are hard to heal,get infected, and are painful. If a partner’s penis, lubed and used gently might tear a rectum, how will a scraping for a pap NOT tear it???
I was thinking that too yikes.
Well, if they scrape something open, and get arterial bleeding, they can at least put on someone’s head stone, “Did not die of cervical cancer”.
In fact, what would they be looking for? If they’re looking for dangerous strains of HPV, there are better tests. If they are looking for colo/rectal cancer, there are better tests. If there are symptoms of rectal cancer, a colonscopy or sigmoidoscopy would seem more appropriate ways to find it or treat it, If they’re concerned about other STIs, there are better tests for that than a PAP.
OMG If my Doctor even asked me anything personal and private like that, including any sex I may or may not be having, then I will flip there and then on the spot. It is not their business….unless I have an issue relating to it and I have sought help for. If my GP visit is for something totally unrelated to those areas then they will not get an answer to it, including whether I use any contraception! It is private and none of their business, I do not want anything like that on my records for all to see……….there is no end to the surveillance of our bodies and it makes me so dam mad!
Sadly this is a reality for many American woman. It’s standard invasive sexual questions they have to answer at there well woman exams. That are pushed heAr. Many woman I know think it’s ok for doctors to ask. Hear it’s standard for gynecologist to test all woman for stds. When they go for cheek ups. So many woman I know are so brainwashed about this. Woman hear have no idea that other countries don’t have annual check ups. I remember a Canadian girl on YouTube was warning girls who move abroad to find a gynecologist and continue to get well woman exams. This girl was like 20 years old to. I didn’t know other countries didn’t do well woman exams ether. Gee how are other woman living with out All that surveillance?
Chas at my very last smear in 2000 I was asked if I practiced safe sex! I refused to answer…I have never had or sought treatment for An STI or unwanted pregnancy. ….
I’m sure I’ve posted this here before but nurse at my surgery tried telling me that she was 100% faithful to her husband as he was to her, yet she still had smears, so I should too. I told her she clearly didn’t trust him then. She looked deeply hurt at this, but then why am I supposed to not feel hurt when she suggests such a situation to me. Furious at what I put up with in those days.
Good for you Ada.
In all honesty, what does she expect when she dares to be so presumptuous and intrusive about someone else’s private business, when that individual has made a perfectly informed choice? This is the result of refusing to take NO for an answer.
It’s like asking someone whether they are still sexually active, or whether they’re promiscuous.
It’s becoming less and less acceptable to be so intrusive and forthright about such personal information.
Play with fire and you will get burned.
Every pap test I’ve ever had contained a LOAD of questions – which I suspect are being used to load a database somewhere for surveillance and/or research, including things like “At what age did you first have intercourse?”, “How many sexual partners have you had?” “How many sexual partners have you had THIS YEAR?” (Emphasis mine, to ensure differentiation of those two questions) “What STIs have you ever been diagnosed with? Did you get treatment? What kind?” What’s your zip code? What’s your annual income? “What is your highest educational achievement?” (WTF does THAT have to do with the health of my reproductive system?” “At what age did you have your first menstrual period?” “How many times have you been pregnant?” How many times have you miscarried? How many abortions have you had? How many children do you have? Did you breastfeed them? For how long? Do you want to have more children? Do you have vaginal sex? Do you have anal sex? Do you have oral sex? Do you use ‘marital aids’ (sex toys)? Do you share those with anyone? Is anyone forcing you to have sex that you do not want? (YES… YOU! I don’t want your bladed speculum and rough brushes nor your grubby (though gloved) fingers in my vagina or anus)
WTF. Anal pap smear. To diagnose what? An even rarer form of anal cancer? Does that also involve “screening” for abnormal anal cells?!
Take out stock in a colostomy bag company if that bs takes root is all can say.
https://patient.info/news-and-features/cervical-smear-test-myths-you-need-to-stop-believing
Looks like Patient have been countering many of our posts.
“It’s so embarrassing!
Your nurse or doctor will have performed hundreds (or possibly thousands, as in my case – don’t ask how long I’ve been a doctor!) of smears. For them, it’s not remotely awkward.”
The screening collective still trots out it’s not embarrassing for THEM. Spectacularly still missing the point that it’s not about THEM – it’s about the thousands of women out there that DO care about body autonomy, privacy and dignity.
Also, I feel that this, “don’t be embarassed, they’ve seen it all before” narrative isn’t about reassuring women, it’s about deriding them, making them feel small and stupid for finding something remotely offensive about these hideous tests.
By making you feel stupid, they make it out that you are the one who has the problem, and if you were “normal”, you’d accept them without reservation.
I once read of a woman who despite being very pro-screening herself, had seen words to the effect of, “dislikes internal procedures”, when she went to the hospital to have her “abnormal cells” removed.
“Doctors/nurses have seen it all before” excuse is ridiculous! Most people have seen “it” before, yet the law still mandates that everyone wears clothes in public.
I’ve always felt a certain attitude dictates the treatment of women in the consult room and elsewhere.
I was reading about vaginal mesh on the weekend, the stuff of nightmares and couldn’t help but think, “yep, there’s that attitude again”…
So many women told flippantly, that this was a quick fix, even when it was known many women were having serious issues with the product. One woman went back to her doctor complaining about pain, the mesh was basically sawing though her ureter, she was “told” the pain is not that bad, it’s just the mesh rubbing a bit.
Women left with faecal and urinary incontinence, constant pain, unable to have sex, just too painful, women needing to catheterise themselves so need to be close to a toilet at all times, many are now isolated fearing an accident if they catch a flight or go to a cafe.
It’s all a bit low key here, I’d heard there were issues with the mesh but had no idea these women were left with such severe injuries – there have even been suicides.
These women went to the doctor with a bit of incontinence or a prolapse and many ended up much worse off…
I hear there’s a class action, but this could/should have been stopped a lot sooner, compensation doesn’t give you back your health and life. I feel no one really listened to these women or they were fobbed off – the old..others know best. Why wasn’t something done sooner to get this product off the market?
It’s disgusting these attitudes still persist in women’s healthcare.
Some women said they got very little information on the risks, but isn’t that usually the way?
It’s been that way with breast and cervical screening, the old problematic IUDs etc. etc.
I was also reading that some women are now taking legal action after birth trauma, usually following vaginal birth – basically there was no consent and/or no warning that vaginal birth posed a serious risk of injury and on-going health and psych issues.
Doctors say women giving birth are now older and things don’t stretch as well…and that the number of c-sections has often been the focus. Some wonder, In an attempt to keep the number of c-sections done, whether that’s leading to more birth injuries.
One Asian woman, age 32, petite, was advised a vaginal birth carried less risk (true for some women) – when the labour dragged on, she expected to have a c-section, instead, without consent or any understanding of what was to follow, she had a forceps delivery and ended up with an anal tear.
This has required 3 lots of surgery, she’s in contain pain, has issue urinating and defecating, has been unable to enjoy her baby (now 2 years old) because of her birth injuries and trauma. (and obviously no sex)
I think legal action sends a reminder to doctors and midwives that women should have a say in what happens during labour and delivery, gone are the days when she was expected to leave it to others, the mere vessel containing a baby.
It’s clear this woman should have had a c-section – and if she opted to persist with the vaginal birth, (that wouldn’t have happened) warned about the possible outcome of a forceps delivery. Again, I’m sure she’ll be successful in her legal action, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
I have been following the Hysteroscopy Action Group in the UK which has been set up to offer women a GA for this procedure. This involves a tube with a small camera on the end forced up through the cervix into the womb to have a look. A saline solution is pumped into the womb and some small pincers can be put through the tube to snip biopsies and polyps off the womb lining, so that they can be tested to see if cancerous.
Hospitals in the UK are on an incentive payments reward scheme to forego anaesthesia, so women are asked to take a couple of paracetamol before the procedure which often lasts for half an hour. Many women have reported it as being absolute torture. Nurses who are supposed to offer soothing words throughout, report women screaming through the process and have asked the patients not to let those waiting know how painful it is. I joined the facebook group but found the daily reports so upsetting, I haven’t dipped in for a while now.
However they have been successful in getting some limited changes, and got a slot on the radio. Some leaflets have been changed and some hospitals are worried about the pressure group. What they are asking is that the offer of a GA should be a choice at the outset, and that any desire to stop the process is listened to and acted upon. Unbelievably the leaflets often say that this is just like a smear test and some women feel no pain at all, although these voices seem completely absent from the social media I’ve looked at.
I was automatically put in for a GA with mine, but that could be because I walked out of my initial appointment. If you are ever referred for such a thing, do exercise your rights to ask for a GA if you don’t want to experience this dreadful procedure awake.
I am npt surprised, though I should be (given that this is supposedly the Civilised West in the 21st Century).
It makes me so angry. It sounds exactly like the trends exercised in the last few years (until the Barrow-In-Furness scandal), to deny women pain relief during labour (and to deny a caesarean even when the situation calls for it. Midwives – especially Midwives – deriding women, and claiming to know better).
These practices make me wonder, is it really all about saving money? How expensive is GA (or an epidural for labour)? Many women would be more than willing to pay for it themselves, and probably even over the odds so that the hospital could make a tidy profit.
This is surely not about money. It is about demeaning women, derision for them and keeping them in their place.
Despite saying that “lessons have been learned” from the Barrow-In-Furness and mesh scandals, this – behind the scenes – is how they all still think, despite a record number of women entering the medical profession.
Another example is elderly patients. These and women are the most despised patients on the NHS. The official line, “lessons must be learned”, is for the odd event when they are caught and have to acknowledge malpractice in order to save face. Nothing more.
I had a GA which I’m told lasted about 30 mins, woke up & laid on trolley for about another 30 mins, then husband came to take me home about 30 mins later. So length of time taken for all this is about the same time as without anaesthetic, but probably the op itself was much quicker as I wasn’t writhing in agony and pleading to stop for pain breaks, and nurse saying soothing comforting words and stress balls are obviously cheaper than an anaesthetist.
Mesh implants were, and still are, an epic fail in Australian medical system. Thousands of women were misled, butchered, dismissed and left in horrendous pain, much worse off than they were before the surgery.
A friend of mine was told it would be “a quick and easy fix”. Ended up living through 6 years of pain, incontinence and wrecked sexual life. She had to undergo 4 subsequent surgeries, which caused significant memory degradation due to anaesthesia. All that just to try to return her internal organs close to the state they were in before the first “quick and easy” surgery. In the meantime, the doctors made hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the patients suffered enormously.
Murx is advertising online birth control and home HPV screening kits. I’m happy to see the birth control option. But I’m concerned about the HPV screening could just lead to fear and more doctors visits. There is so much misinformation shoved at woman. I know some believe they are a ticking time bomb once they test positive for HPV.
In my experience, a scary lot of women think they are a ticking time bomb period. That a female body is nothing more than cancer waiting to happen, and then only in the lady bits.
A female journalist has been soundly criticised for writing an article questioning whether men should become gynaecologists, “Is it really a job for a man?”
The journalist interviewed a female doctor who said male doctors hate women and like to see them in pain.
The article was probably prompted after a couple of recent high profile cases of historic sexual abuse.
I don’t think you can generalise but I also, don’t agree with most of the commentary, it’s irrelevant whether you had 3 children all with a caring male gyn or that you prefer male doctors – one of the comments was that basically you’d have to be blindly idiotic to choose a doctor based on sex rather than competency etc.
It’s quite simple but for some reason so many want to complicate the matter by shouting sexism and discrimination – women should be free to choose a female doctor for any reason, end of story.
Of course, the fact remains that almost all (if not all) complaints about sexual misconduct in a medical setting are about male doctors, the profession has always been slow to remove sexual and sadistic predators and have often protected them, not women.
If a woman prefers a male doctor, fine, but it should be equally fine if I prefer a female doctor.
I don’t see why I should have to justify or explain my preference, it’s my business.
I also don’t see a problem if a man prefers a male doctor, again, that’s his business.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/journalists-article-sparks-fiery-debate-over-why-men-become-gynaecologists/news-story/f9e9e85bf40c9ca8df5fb77f660ff11a
Agree 100%. But unfortunately letting patients to make a choice and respecting their decisions without ridicule, questioning, pressure, bullying or harassment is not something the medical profession habitually do.
I accept that women are entitled to make a decision as to whether they want a male or female gynaecologist.
But the people commenting here seem to think that there’s never been a case of a male doctor abusing a female patient. Or if they do, it happened so long ago that it has totally been eradicated now.
I’d like to know when we developed the ability to identify these men and weed them out of the medical profession.
These people – who should REALLY know better (especially men) – appear to deny that there is no sexual or power connotations to the test whatsoever when performed by a male doctor on a female patient.
Ironically enough, these are probably the types of people who acknowledge that men and women are “different”. Indeed, one male even absurdly states that all men are capable of becoming competent gynaecologists while you could make the argument that not all women are competent enough (presumably, due to physical differences) to become policewomen (all depends on your definition of capability in this context, but I bet this man would make the same argument about women lawyers or women doctors).
Yet, he and all the other deluded posters on this topic seem completely in denial about the physiological and sexual differences between men and women in this context. How very convenient.
In other places at various times, I’ve seen people make the absurd statement that it’s “illegal” for a male gynecologist to become aroused during an examination. Bullshit! You cannot make “thought crime” and you simply cannot prove it. Even a man having an erection or not is not prima-facia evidence of arousal or lack of arousal.
It is so absurd that these people say women are less competent than men, but cannot accept basic biology! What a contradiction in terms!
@Apocalyptic Queen (UK)
“It is so absurd that these people say women are less competent than men, but cannot accept basic biology! What a contradiction in terms!”
Biology is always whatever benefits men.
For example, men are incapable of becoming aroused while giving a genital exam to a woman–its just biology!
But women are incompetent at most of all things because hormones–it’s just biology!
But women must uphold a highly unnatural and largely unattainable standard of beauty because men are incapable of being attracted to anything less or seeing last appearances, but men can be as fat and ugly as they like because women are just more mature and capable of seeing past appearances, so it’s not immaturity or social conditioning or sexism that makes guys only want cheerleaders and supermodels while expecting to be sexually desired despite the most grotesque physical appearance–and to despise women who do much as expect them to shower,shave or wear a clean shirt much lesser or exercise–they are just slaves to their irrational hormones–it’s just biology!
(Yes, it’s just natural that men can’t get it up for any woman who actually exists in nature, and you’re an unreasonable shrew and b%&$ if you challenge that!)
On that note, women are responsible for rape because men can’t be expected to not force themselves on women and will rape any and every woman in the vicinity if they make a single mistake in dress or behavior and men can’t be blamed for it because the poor separate passive slaves of their hormones–its just biology!
But don’t forget, they are incapable of becoming aroused while shoving fingers and tools inside female genitals during exams that contain intrinsic sexual power imbalances, and you’re an unreasonable child if you think otherwise! Grown-ups know that fancy degrees, titles and/or white coats neutralize male hormones but nothing neutralizes those crazy fluffy pink female hormones.
And the scariest part of all of that common b.s. is that most women not only believe every word but also think it’s
feminist to do so.
I just saw something the other day & thought to add it. I don’t know how available it works out to be, but this Nurx site seems to give birth control online. I double-checked the name & it’s not a typo.
Yes I’ve seen a number of adverts for it and many women saying they use it and it works just fine.
Of course there are the usual people screeching about women must come in for screening, annual appointments are vital etc etc. Just shows how brainwashed some women are.
It keeps being advertised to me on Facebook. I read some comments and it’s mixed woman freaked out that they won’t have screening and some others supporting woman’s choice. They also advertise home screening for HPV. And some other things.
https://letstalkcancer.uk/news/importance-cervical-screening-discussed-live-video-broadcast-schools
I find this action really disturbing. These people are targeting teenagers and promoting smear tests as mandatory. They aren’t recommended before age 25 in the UK and I think it’s very wrong that kids are being forced to watch this in schools. Is it just in the UK we have to suffer these nauseating charities promoting screening? Do these smear test charities exist elsewhere?
I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. I’ve seen such things in the past – like when I was 13 and in school in the US decades ago. They tend to be about scaring girls of these cancers. They mix statistics in them, as was on the web page. 1 out of every 2 of us get cancer (eventually, of some type). THEREFORE screening for cervical cancer (a rare cancer) will LOWER this number (maybe, but not significantly). They’ll start screening at 25, so in the meantime, girls, worry that your female organs are going to rot away and attack you. DEMAND that you be tested earlier and more often!
Hmmm. Wouldn’t it be better to go after some of the more common cancers, such as lung cancer, which we know preventive actions to take which are effective and non-invasive? (E.g. Don’t smoke, don’t be around asbestos) How about teaching the signs and symptoms of bone cancer?
Its disgusting they are addling young minds with smear test nonsense. As a school girl i would have been very scared of the prospect of paps. They dont care who they scare. Its cruel. Children have a right to lead happy care free lives not worrying about a cancer that will probably not trouble them.
I think it is totally irresponsible of them to quote this figure. It may be true for the over 80s, but I bet none of these teens are told about that. I saw a young women on TV once who was obsessed with the 1 in 8 breast cancer statistic. Like most people she assumed this was across all ages, and said that she had at least 8 friends which according to these statistics meant at least one of them was actually walking around with breast cancer, and felt it had to be her. No wonder GP appointments are booked up with people worried that they must have cancer. The man in this group is a GP and has done videos before telling women to get smear tests. He ought to know better than to spread this scaremongering.
It’s disgraceful and cruel that so many girls and young women will waste time and energy worrying about cervical and breast cancer. (older women too)
We shouldn’t have to live our lives in fear of trumped up risk – all designed to scare us into compliance and to spread the message…and stop telling us what to do and think – it’s 2019!
I despair at the women who feel they have to promote and encourage women to go for their smear tests. A Netflix special “Comedians of the world” – one episode is with a UK female comedian who goes on about her pre-cancerous cells, and how they were taken off so now she likes to remind women to go and have their smears – after all, all of us have to have them at some stage – really? I don’t think so…
They mean well but obviously don’t realise that most women who screen will go through this procedure, the numbers should fall with less testing and HPV testing – but up until recently, 77% of our women had a colposcopy and biopsy in their lifetime – that’s huge! (and many went on to have cone biopsies etc. we don’t have numbers for those procedures)
The cancer itself was always rare so it’s the screening that’s the issue, not the cancer. Only a small number of women were actually helped…they argue, well to be safe everyone has to be treated – not true – with evidence based screening these numbers would be MUCH lower, look at the Dutch and Finns.
We knowingly pushed women into serious over-screening and early screening and that provides no additional benefit but greatly increases the risk of a procedure for “pre-cancer” cells.
I had to turn it off, couldn’t listen to it…
Theresa May also urged women to have their smear tests – so disappointing that they continue to urge, still very little respect for our right to choose – if 25% or 60% don’t want them, that should be respected, it doesn’t mean you ramp up pressure
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/jan/23/those-few-minutes-can-save-lives-theresa-may-encourages-women-to-take-smear-test-video
Not been very active on here as of late – ongoing case of DCIS in close friend. Couldn’t agree more with Baum. The sooner breast screening is shut down the better. So much harm, and still no clear diagnosis.
This ought to be reported. Women are entitled to make am informed choice, which idms enshrined in law.
These charities are relying on youth and ignorance to bypass this little inconvenience and are treading on very thin ground.
Just as well, the age for screening is 25. So much can happen in a young person’s development between 16 and 25. It’s almost a decade. Oh, I bet they must be fearful that during those intervening years, the young person will discover, it’s not that accurate, the “treatment” is harmful and invasive, some other informed women have decided not to be screened, they have a choice, they can help protect themselves, and they can develop the backbone to say, “No thanks” by the time they’re 25!
I feel so relieved to have found this site! I don’t know if this is the right place to share, forgive me if this is too much. I have had extremely traumatic experiences from paps & a cone biopsy. I have never shared my experience with more than my family before.
My 1st pap I was a 16 year old virgin that wanted birth control, extremely responsible & planning for my 1st sexual experience w my boyfriend. My pap made me pass out, I lost consciousness completely. When I woke up everything was upside down. I thought I was still having the exam, I had no memory of it ending. I quickly realized what happened, apparently I must have stood up at the end of the exam to get down from the table but passed out & fell backwards. I was draped backwards over the stirrup bar which is why everything was upside down. I was alone when I woke up. I sat down, I could not hear at all & could barely see. I had high pitch sound ringing in my ears & everything looked staticky black & white like a show on tv that couldn’t tune in. They MADE me go through that as a 16 yr old virgin to get birth control at planned parenthood. My dad had to carry me to the car because I couldn’t walk out.
At 18 years old I had another pap at planned parenthood, the only way they would allow me to have birth control. They told me I had “precancerous cells, high risk hpv 16/18, cin 3 the level right before CC” & that I had to get a cone biopsy immediately. I was never told of alternatives or risks, I was only told that if I didn’t do it immediately I would be risking my life. They also told me I may end up with a hysterectomy & never be able to have children. After the cone biopsy they told my G-ma who took me in that they “had to take much more cervix than they originally thought”. I stayed in bed recovering for a week. I was then told I must have paps every 6 months for a few years. Every single pap was traumatic (lost count how many) & they all came back perfect & I got cleared to go on the “normal schedule”.
I have not have a pap since, at least 13 years ago. I had 3 children in that time & had to stand up strong to refuse paps or pelvic exams because I felt they were risky to my pregnancies. Thankfully they didn’t ruin my cervix w the cone biopsy, I carried 9 to 11 pound babies to term & even went “over-due” all 3 times. I refused to be bullied in the birth world after I woke up to the “birth system” after my 1st birth where things were done without my consent. I had my 2nd & 3rd babies 100% med-free & knew my rights to consent/decline. I skipped my postpartum checks because I knew they would try to force paps on me.
I found this site because I was looking for an alternative way to check the health of my cervix before conceiving our forth & final baby. I was considering a pap with a midwife at a birthing center, now I think I will be ordering an at-home pap kit & doing it myself. Everything I have been through feels so validated when reading through this site. I felt irresponsible for skipping paps for so long & recently started worrying about my cervix because I haven’t had it checked in so long. So thankful for you all speaking out! Do any of you recommend a specific at-home kit for self-paps? I had the fear of CC drilled into my head for years & would just like some peace of mind to help me let go of that fear. Cannot thank you all enough!
Welcome and I’m glad you found us. You sound like a very intelligent woman and I love that you stood strong against bullying by the medical establishment during your pregnancies – a prime period where they use a woman’s vulnerability in her wish for a healthy child to rope her in to all kinds of unneeded interventions. As for home pap testing, most of us who post here have studied the risks and benefits of this unreliable test (whether its self testing or done by medical personnel) for a very rare cancer and decided the extremely low chance of benefiting are not worth the risks involved (which, as you know, may lead to more invasive procedures). It is understandable that you are concerned, however, since you apparently at one time did have CIN 3. It may well be that you have nothing to worry about since you had a series of normal paps after that. Only you can decide what level of risk you are comfortable with. Maybe someone else can chime in with ideas for at-home testing. Whatever you decide we are here for you and please keep us posted.
There’s also at-home HPV test kits too. If you’re over 30 and HPV free, your chances of cc are pretty much nil and a pap can only really serve as purely emotional reassurance–and with the risks of false positive involved, that might not be worth it. If one is looking primarily for reassurance, the HPV test is better, since it does zero damage, is available in self-test form, and is actually far more accurate than the pap. I’m sure the girls here can point you to the best ones that don’t even require doctor involvement, I’m a 40 year old never-tested virgin here with no experience in the self-serving world (but lots of experience in keeping doctors the heck out of my pants and knowing the reasons I don’t want or need their tools or fingers inside of me).
And just having HPV doesn’t mean you’ll get cc, since most women clear it pretty fast without issue, so it’s worth trying a second test in an appropriate amount of time (again, I’m sure the other girls here know that better than I do). Same way as with pap–if there’s an abnormality,might be better to try one more scrape in a few months and see if it cleared itself (since these abnormalities they scrape for are common and tend to clear themselves, and even CIN 3 abnormalities have been known to do that), before committing to surgery (without anasthesia, no less).
And of course, If you’re under 30, the only cc you’re likely to get is a type that moves fast and is not picked up by pap, so in that case it’s best to refuse testing and just go if you’re symptomatic. Doing tests that young is pointless since most cc grows super-slow but could create a false sense of security that discourages young women from checking out symptoms because “I just had the pap test a month or two ago, so I have a clean bill of health, this must just be a yeast infection or something”. Then next thing you kniw, they’re dead from adenacarcinoma.
Try learning about VIA. https://www.gfmer.ch/ccdc/victest.htm You can do this at home yourself. Acetic acid is just regular vinegar that is diluted. Disposable speculum can be purchased at medical supply company or online.
From hearing from other woman who go to planed parenthood, it sounds like Pp is more aggressive with treating abnormals than other regular doctors. Not to mention most of these woman not even be there if it wasn’t for birth control and of course most still forse screening at pp. I wonder if this is because of some wanting to shut down planed parenthood because they do abortions? It seems like they are trying to show that they save woman’s lives so they ramp up the treatments to show how important pp is to save woman’s lives.
So great,now everyone on all sides are using women’s bodies for their own interests, and screw the effect on the women.
Regardless of their claims, they seek to “opportunistically test” – read “capture” healthy women, especially those with a healthy sex life or function. Alternatively, they seek to “opportunistically test” women who seek medical care for (other) chronic conditions. The claim is “for our health” or “to save women’s lives”. Of course, for every one they save, they destroy the sexual function of hundreds or thousands of women! They destroy the fertility of many of the younger ones, who may (someday) seek to become pregnant. Then, they can swoop in to the rescue, and do any number of fertility treatments or to assist with an “incompetent cervix” – all for a price.
The destruction of healthy sexuality and fertility, and its replacement with various medical interventions can hardly be called anything but outright malice toward women. It’s misogyny in an especially ugly form. It’s misogyny that women have by-and-large bought into… the belief that our “female organs” are plotting to harm or kill us, and without all of these medical interventions, certainly would.
We “refusers” “nay-sayers” or “defaulters” are the ones yelling “The Emperor has no clothes!”, and then WE are considered the “problem” and in need of “counseling” because we are “embarrassed”. “Try it. You’ll see that it’s not THAT bad.” I’ve only got one body. If I allow its iatrogenic destruction in how it’s of service to me, there are no do-overs.
@BethKCZ Just below:
This is true, but somehow, that rhetoric coming from women or orgs who otherwise tout the right of women to their own choices and their own bodies (as in abortion “my body my choice”) seems particularly ugly and hypocritical. If a doctor tried to force an abortion on a woman for any reason, they’d be up in arms, and they’re up in arms over laws that allow doctors to withhold critical medical info from women if they fear she might choose abortion…but when it comes to anything else, esp bikini medicine, it’s all “suck it up and stop crying, it’s not like you get a choice in this, you have to do it and that’s final, the doctor has absolute rights to impose his/her own personal standard of care, etc etc” Coming from.people who already oppose women’s rights to control their own body/medical care is gross as it is, but the crap coming from places like PP just makes one queasy from the opportunistic hypoicrisy, and highlights how they don’t actually care about women, it’s all about profits.
Which is…maybe not something they want to do, as it plays directly into the anti-choice rhetoric of “PP only cares about profits and is using the women who trust them!”
@Demonhype,
I agree that this nonsense coming from the same people who say, “My body, My choice.” regarding abortion – a basic of western ethics since the Enlightenment, as John Locke’s writings speak of a (free) person having bodily autonomy and the right to its integrity – a notion which got punishments such as flogging out of the public square. The notion of informed consent is a basic of medical ethics, and has been since the 17th century. At the same time, they say, “There is no choice. You MUST BE SCREENED for CC.” to all women, regardless of where they are politically. It’s all for the almighty dollar (or other currency).
Informed consent is lacking. For a long time, they touted the false statement (e.g., “lie” in common parlance) that CC was a common or the most common cause of women’s death – that paps, while unpleasant or “embarrassing” will “save our lives”. We hopped on their tables and spread our legs. Now, we find out that this was always a rare cancer, although the prevalence has gone down during the 20th century. So much for the “informed” part of it. Now they’re flat-out going for no consent at all – coercion is a type of force. So is withholding medical care or treatment at all until you give in to this test. It doesn’t matter if some women are embarrassed, some women find it painful, most find it humiliating, and nearly all want control over who penetrates their vagina and/or anus where, when, under what circumstances – if at all. It shows us that we have no say over who penetrates our bodies, how, or when. It’s the price we have to pay to get medical care. Women who are the mothers of teenaged girls must bring them in too, for the same ritual deflowering.
If a plumber, auto mechanic required that they put sharp instruments or (latex-covered) body part into your body before they could fix your sink or your brakes, you would have a case of sexual harassment or assault. If your boss required that (he) put sharp instruments into you or (latex-covered) body part into your vagina and/or anus as a requirement to keep your job, it would be workplace sexual harassment. But if your doctor does exactly this…. it’s all good. It’s a really good cultural blind spot, and one that we should work to overcome.
The same people who want women to have no access to birth control, who oppose what PP has historically focused on (providing birth control), don’t seem to mind if their wife, mother, or daughter encounter this pap crap when trying to access medical care. They don’t even seem to mind if their Grandma has gone to the ER by ambulance for chest pains, and they question her about paps and “offer” to do one before treating her heart attack.
The notion that this useless test has been taken by feminists to show “women’s empowerment” (to be penetrated against our will), and how “liberated” we are because we can now have that done to us is absurd and sickening. Haven’t women always had the “right” to be raped? (sarcastically) In the past though, we didn’t have to pay for it too! Then, the follow-on procedures – now done by PP too, as well as every other doctor, hospital, and clinic which ruin women’s fertility, sex life, and enjoyment (and safety) of her own body.
Maybe they’re doing this as a response to “all PP does is abortion”, but this is precisely the wrong message. I’ve supported PP financially for years – they did give me birth control pills when I could not afford it. The nurse was nice, showed me my own cervix, but she did not really have informed consent – knowing what I know now. She should have taken my blood pressure, and perhaps offered this test for a rare cancer, as well as informed me how a false positive could ruin my life.
I think what we need to do is start using the informed consent angle. Lack of information is not “informed”. Permitting something under coercion is legally “force” just the same as if some guy held a gun to my head and conventionally raped me. Fighting back and resisting is no longer a requirement to show rape. If he wore a condom, and claimed it was not rape because of the condom, he’d be laughed all the way to the penitentiary!
If the girl is under the age of consent, just who is giving consent to penetrate her vagina or anus, with a body part and/or object? It’s not valid if she gives it. Her parents? Parents do not have the legal right to consent to sex with an underaged girl either – as seen in cases of parents pimping out or trafficking their daughters. How is it different for a doctor to perform a needless test or examination, which is not the standard of care, than it is for some creep to penetrate her with objects or body parts – latex-covered or not?
Doctor on notice in Victoria, Australia for performing un-needed breast exams – https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/specialist-temporarily-banned-from-breast-checks-20190709-p525jv.html
I reported a doctor for doing this, and the HCCC totally dismissed me. The authorities are still very dismissive of womens complaints. It takes years and multiple women complaining persistently before anything is done, if they actually do anything at all. Same old, same old.
Can’t help but think the attitudes we see about the female body, that is, much less concern about exposing women..is pervasive, it’s not just medicine.
I find the entertainment industry sets a very bad example. I was watching Get Shorty on pay TV last night and there’s a scene – full frontal of a young woman, and she’s on view for quite a while, the male is of course, tucked up in bed, only his chest is visible. This is a common scene, careful to protect the male from exposure while the woman is completely nude and out there…
The argument is made, the censors put a high rating on full male nudity – that male organs are on view, whereas women – it’s all inside and out of sight.
I don’t buy this argument at all, if a man and woman walk down the street naked, they’re both going to be arrested for indecent exposure. It’s time censors and others were challenged…
There’s such a readiness to throw in a naked young woman – I assume the writers like looking at naked young woman and they probably know it will add to the appeal and success of the program.
I couldn’t watch Game of Thrones, it was disgraceful, female nudity everywhere, men carefully covered up.
The argument was made…well, it was like that back then, really? An orgy scene with the men covered up and the women all completely naked, I doubt that!
Medicine has made clear that our exposure doesn’t matter as much, “we’re used to it” (or should be or WE have an issue) because we have babies and MUST have Pap tests.
Game of Thrones was so absurdly one-sided, like some school boys put together the script, that some of the male actors volunteered to do nude work, don’t think that ever happened though. If it is the censors, their rating criteria needs to be reviewed, it smacks of exploitation, voyeurism and sexism to me. It’s also highly disrespectful, but that’s what we see over and over in all walks of life.
It sends out a clear message. that female nudity is fine, male nudity – not on! I definitely think this shapes attitudes and fosters the idea that our bodily privacy is less important, irrelevant really…
I do think it’s pervasive – in fashion, music videos, travel – wasn’t so long ago that a woman in a bikini was draped over a car during it’s promotion or in ads to sell sofas.
The readiness to expose women needs to be addressed, it’s not good enough to say, these woman are well paid – it really sends the wrong message.
I agree. I would also like to add that it all revolves around sexualizing women, and controlling them. All of your examples show how women’s sexuality is exploited and normalized at the behest of systemic, cultural, patriarchal attitudes.
If you look at the inverse, a woman exposing herself by choice for a non sexual reason, most people seem to act a little differently. My example is breastfeeding. A woman who breastfeeds, even discreetly in public are often met with snide remarks or curious gawkers. A women choosing to expose herself for a nonsexual reason isn’t given the same enthusiasm. The act is also something she has control over.
These examples clearly demonstrate that society approves of sexualizing women, especially when it results in control over them. I think bikini medicine definitely falls into the examples you presented. It’s showered in praise and credibility and leaves women out of the decision making. The way the medical field treats women gives off the same controlling sexual sentiment as other aspects of our society.
Well said, Eva
Completely agree with you..
I actually think it is far more insiduous than that.
The images promoted in the media suggest the women are all beautiful, compliant and above all, sexually available.
It is therefore quite interesting that GPs tend to assume all young women who present to them are sexually active, no matter what they say.
The intelligent, informed woman just doesn’t conform to these stereotypes, and they don’t like it.
I am starting to see a gradual change in the media mostly influenced by young people, and some of the “old boys club” are being weeded out, but it is still a very gradual change.
Game of Thrones for example, seemed to tone down a lot of the graphic female nudity scenes towards the end of their series and you’d see naked men in the same scenes as naked women during the latter seasons, but they disappointed again in the final season (I assume as it was the last season, they thought people wouldn’t bother complaining so they could do what they liked).
What infuriates me is some of the moral excuses used for exclusively exploiting female nudity, which usually consists of people saying, “naked women look better than naked men”. I’ve even heard women who call themselves feminists talk of “celebrating” the “female form”. Are they just so incredibly stupid that they don’t realise that they are trumpeting the very thing traditional feminists have campaigned against for years? You have the likes of the Kardashians taking naked “selfies”, plastering them over the internet and calling it “empowering”. Becoming a female scientist, athlete, head of state etc doesn’t seem to feature as “inspirational” to large sections of new wave feminists.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48881008
Health officials say the HPV vaccine for 12 to 13-year-old boys, starting after the summer, will prevent 29,000 cancers in UK men in the next 40 years.
I guess we’ll see in 40 years then?!?
But I do hope parents and the boys look into this very carefully…before accepting the jab!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2019-07-11/embarrassment-puts-women-at-risk-cervical-cancer/11298660
Oh, trouble with the new fabulous screening program, lots of women are not testing, of course, it’s down to embarrassment and discomfort, what a shock!
Who would have ever imagined women would find this revolting test, invasive and uncomfortable?
Women have made their feelings clear all along, but no one wanted to listen, they were just fobbed off or belittled, or lectured etc. Now women are making their choice known loud and clear by not testing.
This was covered on News Breakfast on the ABC this morning but no mention of HPV self-testing, just a survivor urging women to screen, so in 2019, it still comes down to scare tactics.
They really don’t want to promote self testing, it’s really only a last resort measure for the very hard to reach groups.
Delighted to hear more women are exercising their legal right to refuse any or all screening tests.
Bottom line, if you don’t want it, say NO
Interesting, in this article they interview a woman with Stage 4 cervical cancer, someone who has always had 2 yearly Pap tests – she’s raising awareness but I’m sure some women might wonder how exactly she benefited from all that testing, how good could pap testing be, if you end up with Stage 4 cervical cancer?
I assume she was diagnosed before HPV testing was introduced and that she had an adenocarcinoma, a rare cancer usually missed by pap testing. I wonder if the normal Pap tests reassured her resulting in a delay in diagnosis and treatment? We won’t see an article on that though…
Sounds like exactly the same tactics Jo’s Tosh came out with for their “research”. The article quotes the research found only one quarter found the test embarrassing, but the headline shouts it is the only reason. These charities are being used to coerce and bully women. Like Jo’s, they never disclose any details about the research, but they feed it to the media to write disparaging articles about women.
Ada, I suspect we follow your lead, over the years I’ve read a few times that the UK’s impressive screening figures are largely due to the call and recall system, our numbers were never as good because our screening was largely opportunistic. Not sure if it happens now, but the UK had a red flag system too, often enforced by a nurse or even a receptionist so that any appointment by an unscreened or overdue woman raises a red flag, “smear test will be required”.
Also, when the woman went into the consult room, the red flag was visible to the GP.
No wonder many women avoid GPs when you’re going to face that sort of pressure.
Also, the unethical practice of removing an unscreened woman from practice records, clearly an attempt to coerce the woman to screen and to improve the stats for the firm so they attract a higher incentive payment.
Our GPs get target payments but I’ve never heard of a woman being removed from patient records here or being told she must attend a counselling session.
All of these things are try-on’s, I think GPs would be very careful not to use these measures with an informed woman or anyone likely to push back and report them.
That’s not a criticism of those who were entrapped by a highly unethical system (and possibly more than unethical) – most women didn’t have a chance, real information was locked away and I know without that, it would be hard to fend off the screening vultures.
We now have a call and recall system, I’ve fallen between the stools, a very comfortable place, haven’t received a thing from the screening authorities and my GP wouldn’t send me anything to do with screening.
I actually hope they do, at this stage in my life, I’d enjoy calling them and putting THEM under some pressure!
Hi Elizabeth yes sadly in UK we have the red flag system where it comes up if we’re due or overdue. I’ve been phoned b4 asking me to book a smear. It’s been brought up in consult even after I officially opted out. I have to say it’s not been raised lately though i read even opted out women are contacted every 5 years to try and have them back! That will b next year 4 me and I’d b on 5 year recall now. If it happens I’ll pen a snotty reply….
Elizabeth, the red flag system was the reason I stopped going to the GP and indeed ended up not being registered for about 10 years. My ‘overdue for screening’ status was mentioned at an appointment for something else and I was told to make an appointment for a smear test at the reception desk on my way out. I agreed but walked straight past reception and never went back. A few years later I phoned up to make an appointment, only to be told that I wasn’t with them – I’d been removed from the surgery’s list I was fed up of the letters keeping coming and, I think in those days they put it in big red letters that you were overdue (like you’d get if you hadn’t paid a utility bill or something), and the prospect of them mentioning it every time I went to the surgery, and not respecting my choice. So I didn’t take up their offer to re-register with them. As such I was ‘off the radar’ and didn’t get any reminders for years. It makes me mad to think that I underwent this testing in my 20s because they told me I had to, I didn’t know I could opt out, I was made to feel like someone who wasn’t doing what she was supposed to (with all the relentless reminders) “she’s overdue for her smear test, tut tut”, and that I wasn’t aware of all the facts to make an informed decision. With the help from this site, it appears they have finally listened (after 2 years of trying), and ‘ceased’ me from the recall system, although reading Kat’s comments above, I’ll see if I get a letter in 5 years from now. The last letter I sent them before being ‘ceased’ was a template letter from the Information Commissioner’s Office, telling them I was concerned about how they were using my data after I’d withdrawn consent. I detailed a timeline in the letter of all the times I had written and emailed to request to be ceased, but that they had ignored.
Hi Julie. The British Cervical Screening Programme has always operated as a draconion system. Back in the 80’s and 90’s women were not aware they could refuse. Information about opting out was deliberately kept quiet. In fact women were lead to believe smear tests were compulsory.
Like you I was ‘ensnared’ in my 20’s. They got us young before we knew any better. Now i’m in my 50’s i’m not afraid to stand up for myself. I wish i could warn my younger self.
At least the young now have information available to them via the internet. I don’t think they are ‘captured’ so easily as we were.
Don’t ever be hard on yourself over it. Like the rest of us you were a victim of a system that was deliberately set in place to give us no choice.
At least now you’re older you can stand up to doctors. Be ‘firm’ with them. Never stand for any crap over smears.
X
Lol! Talk about desperate!
I officially opted out in 2005 but have been asked three times since then.
I wonder if we can use GDPR (a wonderful piece of legislation!) to call them out if this happens?
If we have opted out, and they’re still using our data to hassle us, then surely they’re in breach of some data misuse? On my disclaimer foem, I added the words, “this is the last I wish to hear on the matter”. So, if they try it on again, I won’t hesitate to pull that card.
Unfortunately “Section 251” has a lot to do with this and allows them full access to screening data which conveniently includes population screening! Makes me so dam mad!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/patient-confidentiality-in-nhs-population-screening-programmes/nhs-population-screening-confidential-patient-data
I no longer trust my GP or local hospital with my data. I do not wish to engage with their data collection. I refuse to be weighed, refuse to answer questions about my health, alcohol consumption or my smoking status. I also refuse all screening. I have blocked their telephone number after a recent call from a health care assistant. She asked to come in for a health check. I refused and she got quite aggressive when I refused to answer her questions.
When I want their help, I will ask for it.
I stopped screening years ago. I did worry if I was going to die from cervical cancer due to all the hype. I found out about visual inspection with acetic acid (VIAA) which is a programme that is used in poor countries that do not have large cervical screening programmes or laboratories that can be funded for screening. It is very simple and manuals are available to be viewed online. Here is a link to one such manual. https://screening.iarc.fr/viavili.php
Acetic acid is just plain household vinegar. It is diluted and applied to the cervix or other places. Any lesions caused by HPV turn white. Areas of concern or cancer will turn white and there are photos in the manual to compare healthy from diseased cervix.
Nurses and other healthcare workers are trained to do these tests and even treat some women with cryotherapy (dry ice wand). I would not treat myself with that but herbal and natural treatments.
All one needs is a plastic disposable speculum available from medical supply companies (store or ordered online), a mirror, a flashlight, some vinegar solutions and long swab or cotton ball tied to chopstick with an elastic band. Iodine solutions can also be used which is available in any pharmacy.
I looked at my own cervix and discovered no problem. So no more worries and I just refuse any doctor exams. I can take care of myself.
I recall reading a post on this site from an NHS Worker who was sent on GDPR training, where it was confirmed that it applied to cervical screening. I believe it is with regards to the sending of reminders.
I think Julie has stated that you can obtain a template from the Information Commissioner’s Office, to complain, and she stated that she was concerned that her data was being misused to hassle her after she had withdrawn consent.
If we have officially opted out, I think it’s certainly worth a try to get them off our backs in the consult room.
I know that some public bodies have been fined for up to £1 million for data breaches (and I highly suspect they would have been made aware of the consequences during their training), but if some GPs are still vague about what constitutes a data breach, the threat of it might be sufficient.
As far back as 2015 the odious cervicalscreen1 blog did a piece praising the new flag sysystem and a few of us offhere jumped on her. Her latest is a piece on the Aussie system where CC could b eradicated if women just got over themselves. She’s also on instagram as@cervicalhealthhannah
Don’t you stupid children understand that your bodies are not your property, and your genitals are especially not your property? If only you could understand that your bodies belong to me–i mean, the government– and our desire to eradicate any given illness overrides any and all (female) bodily autonomy? If only you drama queen could just get over your silly notions of “civil rights”, “bodily autonomy” and “informed consent”, then my dream could be a reality! No, how dare you, I am nothing at all like Hitler!
That goes for countries with socialized medicine and pap smear programs. In the market-driven, capitalistic USA with a paternalistic health care system that is partly (you hope) paid for by insurance (but not always) – and you’ll be billed for things sort of randomly months in the future, complete with collection agents it’s more like:
“Don’t you stupid girls understand that your bodies are not your property, your genitals especially are not your property. I am your doctor – and how that was assigned is also sort of random, possibly partly by your choosing. My desire to discover all possible illness, and to treat them all – at a considerable profit – overrides any and all female body autonomy. While you might be able to be assigned to another physician, it will not matter – that physician also owns your body then. Please give up notions of “civil rights” “bodily autonomy” “informed consent”, along with notions of “consumer protection” and “transparent billing”, spread ’em, and based on the results of a wallet biopsy, you can go through many painful and damaging treatments. If you fail the wallet biopsy, you will be sent to a county health clinic or to a non-profit organization such as Planned Parenthood, who, in their quest to not be seen as “abortionists”, will perform these same damaging procedures on you, and you will be eternally grateful if you just give up the notion of “civil rights” “bodily autonomy” “presumed ownership of your own body” and “informed consent”.
This is hostile to the concept of living a good life, having a life at all. It seems to be an example of “donating your body to science” long before you’re physically dead.
That Hannah sounds as if she’s really not playing with a full deck if you get my meaning 🤣
Interestingly she’s handed over her Twitter handle to someone else and won’t be there anymore. Hopefully she got tired of her ridiculous posts being called out. I got blocked in the end.
I haven’t visited the blog in a while but might do so for a giggle.
On the News this morning, the same story, women are not screening because they’re embarrassed, women don’t need to die from cc, no child needs to lose it’s mother BUT not one word on self testing.
If embarrassment stands in the way of testing, the remedy is on hand but they refuse to freely give women a non-invasive alternative…still relying on scare
Not many women would accept a speculum exam if they understood self testing is just as reliable. We’re not using the Delphi Screener here, probably too expensive, also, they obviously want to say the self test is not as good as a physician taken sample. I doubt that’s true, whatever self test we’re using…
They’re torn, self testing would get more women on board, they want more women to test but the need to control women is greater, and their preference to use the invasive test. Our bodily comfort and dignity were never even a remote concern for the keepers of these programs, IMO, they have no respect for women. The medical surveillance of our bodies is something they view as mandatory…it really is sickening.
The language used continues to be unacceptable…”fail to attend for cervical screening”…
You might fail to lodge a tax return and end up fined, but could you ever say someone failed to attend something voluntary? No, it’s designed to make women feel they must or should attend…
Our program is also ego driven, with a desire to eradicate the disease, of course, they’ve never cared about the legal rights of women or the huge numbers they’ve harmed along the way.
Yes, it is quite telling, “fail to attend for cervical screening” is much like the language of “fail to file a tax return”. Screenings for men are termed as optional “Men should consult with their doctor to see if prostate screening is for you.” while “women MUST be screened.”
Certainly, self-collected samples are far less invasive than the speculum exams. However, they still lack reliability, and most women with a lifetime of “on time screens” will end up being referred for more invasive and damaging testing – colposcopy, punch biopsy, LEEP, cone biopsy, and hysterectomy. The notion of having parts of my cervix torn off without anesthesia – as the colposcopy and biopsy entail is something I do not consent to. Thus, I don’t see how self-collected sampling would help me other than to end all physician visits being monopolized by the urge to screen. I expect the insistence for follow-on testing after an abnormal pap would be even more intense.
With any test for any purpose, before you perform the test, you need to know what you will do with the results – ANY results. If it’s negative, all is well and good, and I suppose you could get peace of mind for a cancer that was always a rare cancer. It could be false security, as adrenocarcinomas are not detected with the PAP, and false negatives, so you and your doctor might put off diagnostic testing if you start showing symptoms.
In the US for the past couple of decades, the number of CC cases has hovered around 12,000 and deaths from CC around 4,000. This number peaked in 1990, and has been declining, but the number of deaths has stubbornly stayed at about 1/3 of cases for several decades – while the death rate is declining for most other cancers as a result of improved treatments.
You’re quite right.The idea seems to be control of women, and to make us patients. This outsized focus on screening appears to have more in common with prison rape than it does with any medical procedure.
As most cases of cervical cancer are in those aged over 80, I don’t see how they could ever truly eradicate the disease.
Like many diseases in people of that age, people die WITH it, rather than FROM it. Some medical professionals would argue that it is not always in someone’s best interests to have aggressive cancer treatment for a slow-growing malignancy, particularly if that person (highly likely at that age) is suffering from other health problems such as dementia or having to take warfarin for heart complications!
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2019/07/15/gp-endorsed-text-reminders-help-increase-cervical-screening-attendance-in-london/
It’s interesting that campaigns like this always seem to crow about how successful they are, when in reality very little has changed. As always, women that choose to screen will respond to reminders. The so called “hard to reach” group will no doubt remain the same.
The end result shows that the “converted” book a smear test earlier than with a summons letter alone over a 5 month period of time. And they call this increasing uptake?
Ada – quite right – women just responded to their summons earlier. If you measure over a 5 month period, you won’t see the drop off in the following months where women have already attended their screening. Smoke and mirrors.
I think they use the spike in take-up to tell Health Screening Committees that their campaigns has generated an increase in attendances. I’m not sure if these Committees are intelligent enough to look at the context behind the take-up, or bother to question why there has been a 25% spike in increases during a particular campaign and how many were previous defaulters etc.
The charities will use the “spike” to justify continued funding.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-screening-programmes-kpi-reports-2018-to-2019
I always check the KPI results when they come out 4 times per year, and regardless of all the campaigns going on they cannot get the uptake over the 70% programme viability point, but I believe that the GP performance indicators have changed to everyone being screened every 5 years now instead of 3, in preparation for full roll out of HPV testing by December, so expect them to gloat very soon that uptake for under 50s has made an amazing recovery.
I noticed that breast screening has actually gone up. A result of the AgeX trial having an effect?
Would b interesting to know how many women declined the offer of a text reminder….
I had a look at this new NHS app the other day. I noticed that people were saying they were able to read their medical notes online. I’ve also see women report that results like smear test results can also be received within a few days. When I tried to get an account, it seems hugely complicated, as wanted my NHS number and so much personal identification stuff. In the end it said I would need to visit my GP surgery in person to organise it all. I would like to read my medical notes but am wary of how much medical harrassment will follow. I haven’t visited in 5 years and my husband last saw a doctor in about 1987. Perhaps they think we’ve died.
I just went to GP reception with passport, and they gave me a bit of paper with the username and password(to be changed). No further contact. I can use it to make appointments with the GP online too (although current GPs only have a few appointments available for this 😦 )
The record is just a series of codes and one-liners but I have copied out all my blood tests that I never knew I had.
Ada don’t they have to trawl through patient lists now to avoid getting paid for ghost patients? If you don’t use the practice for a few years they try to contact you?
I had one of these about 10 years ago and it went in the bin. I assume they think I’m dead too!
TBH, if it means no harassment I’m quite happy to remain anonymous and access care via a walk in centre or similar when I actually want it.
Kat, I’ve steered clear of my awful practice for almost 10 years now, they sent me a letter last year asking me to contact them to confirm my details, so that was obviously the ghost patient check. And surprise, surprise, when I called I was told ‘they’ wanted me to have a smear… Nope. Shortly after that I got a call asking me to come in for a blood pressure check and ‘a few other things’… Nope again.
I’m expecting some sort of letter from them any time, but nothing so far. I suppose that as I no longer have a cervix I’ve lost my market value and they can’t make any money from women like me.
I noticed from their website that all patients have now been allocated a new GP based on their surname initial. Apparently, most patients were demanding to be changed from having one of the horrid doctors to one of the nice ones there, and some doctors were getting over-subscribed. You only know which doctor you have been allocated when you book.They’ve also put a notice up on their website that they will no longer tolerate abuse from patients or patients will face removal from the practice. I feel like posting if this also covers patient abuse from doctors?
The practice nurse at my surgery rung me out of the blue one day a few years ago and said ‘we need to record your height and weight and take care of one or two other ‘little’ things.
I told her I could tell her these things over the phone. She replied by telling me no I had to come in. Out of curiosity I asked her what where the one or two other little things. Reluctantly she said ‘its time for your smear.’ She seemed very hesitant as if she didn’t want to talk about it over the phone.
It was only afterwards I thought that she had mostly likely been trained to speak like this. As if the smear was only a ‘little’ thing I might as well have done seeing since I’m already here. I think she was going to use recording my height and weight as a ruse to get me in and spring it on me so I couldn’t get out of having one.
Of course I’m wide awake about practice nurses and have been for along time because of nurse G.G.
I went along for the appointment and after she had weighed me I came in for some pressure to have a smear. I stood up for myself and told her straight she wouldn’t be doing one.
Practice nurses have been trained to do this. If they are using the same try on techniques in different parts of the country then I can only presume they have learnt this approach from somewhere central.
I came across an article in nursing times which I subscribed to a couple of years ago when I was writing my book on how best to get women to submit to smears and things like this were included in the article.
Nurse were giving each other tips on how best to capture women.
In my opinion Practice Nurses are worse than doctors over forcing women to have smears. As I said in my book they think of it as a religious duty.
My advice is to stand up to these pushy women. Be firm if they start pressuring you. They quite quickly back off as they don’t like hassle.
That’s cool u went in and stud up to her face to face.
They remind me of the nuns in that film about the Magdalene laundries, and are equally as fanatical and ignorant about it.
I used to avoid them like the plague, but I’d relish the opportunity to put one or two of them in their place now.
Sydney Morning Herald has published a story today on the causes of death by age group.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/australians-are-living-longer-than-ever-but-how-does-our-cause-of-death-vary-depending-on-our-age-20190716-p527l6.html
Surprise, surprise, cervical cancer isn’t mentioned anywhere! I wrote a comment under the name ‘Sydney Chick’, saying how women are hounded to death to get pap smears but heart concerns (one of the leading killers) are ignored. They published it! Commonsense at last!!
If you went back to 1950, it still wouldn’t be mentioned, a lot of damage and expense for something that was always rare in the developed world and was in natural decline.
No wonder they had to lie and use every dirty tactic going to force women into the program.
Chatting to some friends the other night, all in their 50s and 60s, 3 have been putting their family tree together, all their female ancestors got into their 80s (with one exception, accident on a farm) with no screening.
My friend, Julia, happened to mention that to her GP and the response, “wow, they were lucky to dodge cervical cancer with no pap testing back then”…
Lucky? Hardly?
Now most screened women have lost some of their cervix and many carry psych issues, all to screen for some phantom life-threatening cancer.
Can’t work out whether most GPs are clueless or just continue to sing from the public health song sheet
This also rang alarm bells for me. I’d never heard either of my grandmothers (deceased ages 89 and 95) or my mother, currently 91 ever mention this cancer or a test for it, so when the bossy practice nurse at our surgery told me I would almost certainly go on to get cancer and die if I didn’t have it, I knew this simply couldn’t be true and was deeply suspicious of the whole thing from the start.
My grandmothers, all of whom were in their 70s or 80s when population pap testing was rolled out in the 1970s in the US, never talked about such a test, and didn’t talk about anyone who died of CC. They talked about other people, including those with heart conditions, strokes, bone cancer, lung cancer, and uterine cancer – but not cervical cancer. My Mom got caught up in the push for pap tests in the 1970s – when it became what all “liberated” women did. I can remember her explaining it to me, a child, what this test was, that it’s “where most uterine cancer starts” (BS), that they’d “have to” do it if or when I got contraception (and I knew where to get it, and under what circumstances, and that I could get contraception even without parental notification (but asked me to talk to her first – when has any teenaged girl talked to her mother/parents about whether they should become sexually active????)). She drew me models, and pictures, and explained where it was… like this was all new information to her.
In the 1960s, she’d been a medical records secretary – and typed up case histories for people in the hospital – including autopsies. I asked, “I bet you saw a lot of these when you worked….” “Ummm, no. They didn’t KNOW ABOUT IT THEN.” Even as a child, I did a WTF on that one – didn’t know about it? And, it’s such a huge problem? Of course, the claim a few years earlier was they didn’t know about smoking being associated with lung cancer, so that had some credibility, but nobody claimed they didn’t know about lung cancer in autopsies.
I never have gotten any answer when I’ve asked about who does all of those autopsies in poor countries, where CC is supposedly still rampant because they can’t screen because of very few medical personnel, are limited on distribution of vaccines, have a lot of malnutrition and outright starvation, but yet somehow, there are armies of people doing autopsies.
It’s interesting that you mention that screening and by extension, loss of bodily autonomy, was said to be something done by “enlightened women”.
It’s definitely something the UK authorities try to sell it as, over here, but the crowing and cries of, “you must screen” us starting to lose its impact.
They know the worst that will happen if they decline screening, won’t actually happen. They cannot be forced to go, they know it’s a “choice”, they know cervical cancer is actually rare, so the authorities try using another tack to get them on board. It’s either, “it could save your life”, or, “it’s empowering”.
This got me thinking, why are the medical authorities so loathe to let go of screening, given there is an alternative available? Is it all just about the money? Because sending “reminders” and offering unneccessary “treatments” are not exactly cheap. It’s more than that, or at least there are other elements to it.
When you hear so many women complain that it’s “degrading”, while nurses respond that it’s just “something that has to be done”, it reminds me of other similarly disrespectful treatment meted out to women in medical settings.
Traumatic experiences during labour leading to PTSD, the mesh scandal, ignoring women’s mental health issues etc, it all sounds so familiar – it all constitutes degrading treatment.
They don’t want to let screening go because it keeps women in their place. It’s as if they’re saying there’s a price to be had for all that freedom we’ve earned.. you still have to put up with screening. That’s what they’re saying. If they can’t monitor your freedom, they’ll monitor your bodies.
What angers me the mist is that so many women hace been stupid beyond belief to the point that they have been actively complicit, by bullying and indoctrinating other women.
Well, the bully tactics sure are losing their appeal.
Personally, I think that the reason screening goes on spite of being of poor medical value is that it is highly lucrative for private healthcare. It was brought in by the Tory government in 1980s as part of their efforts at that time to privatise healthcare and run down the NHS. With so many new private healthcare companies starting up, offering screening tests is big business, and the old well-woman crap is being exploited by many companies.
Recently saw that where the UK National Screening Committee has blocked screening tests which do not pass it’s approved standards (eg lung screening), many private companies are offering these under the guise of a “health check” so that these do not have to be medically approved.
My gma was still being given screening a few years back after a full hysterectomy and cervix removal. We were talking about it a few years ago. I asked her why were they giving u screening u don’t have a cervix. She said “. I know they screen for all sorts of things not just cancer but for infection to.” I don’t think she believes me to this day. She said “All woman have to do it.” It’s clear these woman never even knew what the doctor was screening for. It was just something done to them without question. I don’t go for that one bit.
How do these people think the human race has survived for millennia without screening?
We are more likely to be wiped out by flu.
I was in the same position as Ozphoenix and it ended with the same result. I contracted swimmers ear in college and went to the infirmary. I got a young male doctor who while looking in my ear asked me when I had my last breast exam and pap test. I told him I had not been to a doctor in many years so the answer was never. He said he would prescribe an antibiotic for me after a much needed breast and pelvic exam. It appeared the antibiotic was predicated on my agreement to the exams. So it was 10 seconds looking in my ear and over forty five minutes being opened up and felt up. At some point it became painfully obvious this was no longer a medical exam. When he was finally done with me he gave me the script and told me to make an annual appointment at the front desk with him as my primary care doctor.
I was never going to see him again. After talking with other women about the length of time and detailed procedure of their breast and internal exams, I knew he took advantage of me and I filed a complaint.. All I got back was a letter stating my doctor followed all medical standards and guidelines. They suggested I schedule my yearly exams with him, or another doctor of my choice, as these exams are extremely important for my health. It was obvious they were never going to admit he molested me, so I dropped it. Unfortunately that meant he would continue molesting girls on the college campus until more of them spoke up.
Laura, that sounds so familiar. The well woman nonsense was never really a feature of women’s healthcare here unless you wanted the pill or pre-natal care. In stayed in a women’s hall of residence and there was often Pill and Pap test talk.
I could accurately predict when a woman went to student health to get a script for the Pill, whether she’d face a blood pressure test or be stripped naked and put through the works.
I worked out very early that some male doctors, and most doctors were male back then, were using their trusted position to assault women, to take advantage.
It made a deep impression on me…I lost trust very early,
Keeping the Pill on script and linking it to the Pap test (and back then a pelvic and breast exam too) enabled these men to continue taking advantage for many years….and as you found out, the boys club and the system protected them. It’s not surprising that all the historic sex assault charges now being faced by male doctors in their 60’s or older, there were usually lots of early complaints but nothing was done. Unchecked power put women in great danger…
Laura, I heard from a friend once who accompanied her husband to a hospital appointment for quite a serious illness, so they were both very worried. They went private as he had private health insurance through his job, so it wasn’t on our NHS. While her husband was being seen, she was approached by another doctor who suggested a smear test. She was very taken aback, as the NHS refuse to do them more frequently than every 3 years and no test was due, but she didn’t want to do anything to affect her husbands health plan, so reluctantly agreed. She told me that afterwards, she deeply regretted it as it was clearly for the doctors benefit. I’m sure this is endemic.
This is absurdly opportunistic screening – to the point of being close to being sexual battery – to take someone who is not the identified patient and demand (she) have a screening test outside of what is considered good medical practice in the time and place. Yes, it was for the doctors’ benefit, not hers.
Ada that’s outrageous but hey to medics we r all targets.
In 2015 I was diagnosed with severe anaemia. The doc suggested I had the cameras down my thro and up my bum. I refused as I had no gastric symptoms and said I wanTed to try iron tablets first. He asked couple other questions .
Then he said I needed a smear test. I’d not had one in 15 years. I said no I’d opted out and signed a disclaimer. He went on and on about it. Why didn’t I want one? I needed one. I just repeated I opted out signed about disclaimer and wouldn’t have a smear. He was fine with me refusing about test for about condition I’d been diagnosed with but most of the time was taken up with smears! And years later I’m fine. No longer ananamic and not dead of CC
A doctor walks up to a random woman and suggests a smear test! Does this creep just hang around the waiting room offering to do smears on any woman that takes his fancy?
It’s a shame she didn’t complain, how would he explain his conduct? Clearly, some sort of pervert.
Just goes to show how empowered doctors feel thanks to the Pill on script and the pap testing program, it gives them easy access over many/most women. Consent has been ignored from the start, so if challenged, he could conveniently say, opportunistic testing is encouraged or I really believe in this testing, or I’m chasing my target or the bonus attached to a cervix that hasn’t been tested for 5 years or even better, at all.
The number of women who have accounts of a suspect “exam” makes me think assault in medicine was probably fairly common, it certainly was in the 70’s and 80’s, (and earlier) they have to be more careful now but I’m sure some doctors continue to press an opportunistic pap test on a young woman who happens to be in his consult room for a migraine or tack on a breast exam – even the head of the AMA said the Pill should be on script because women need Pap tests and breast checks.
No one picked him up, women don’t need Pap tests for the Pill, never did, and routine breast exams have been out for a long time now – it’s in the GP’s Red Handbook – you’d think the head of the AMA would know that – I’m sure he does, but he’s also confident no one is going to challenge him, it really is the most disgraceful conspiracy of silence.
The old TUBE was common when I was a young woman, I avoided doctors so dodged them but lots of women had them during a consult for a cold or a rash on your hands, anything really…it was obviously viewed as a perk of the profession – pretending to examine a women when you were actually assaulting her.
Funny, the risk of breast cancer increases as we age but not too many GPs are hassling older women for breast checks – but some are frantic that young women might have an issue.
The incident that happened to my friend was in 1990’s. This wouldn’t have happened in the NHS, as if you’ve had a test less than 3 years before, they would not do another unless you could produce your summons letter even if you asked gor it, but the husband had got private health insurance from his company, and under private healthcare you can have a smear test as often as your insurance covers it. The doctor clearly thought he’d try it on, and my friend felt pressured. She must have only been in her 30s then. I wonder if he’d have asked a woman in her 60s?
Sorry for typos my phone playing up
In my own case, the PRESSURE to have paps be screened AT EVERY VISIT didn’t start until I was in my 50s, developed a chronic condition, so I neededed continued care. Now, my diabetes and thyroid take a back seat to their coercing me to have a pap test and breast exam, as I say, “No freakin’ way!”
I’m sure some of it is to get into the pants of young attractive women, but a lot of it is for degradation, control, and humiliation – not to mention a consult to sending the women they’ve just sexually assaulted for mental health care. Women should all be happy to be forced and coerced into penetration by a stranger, right?
Elizabeth. Yes I found out the college campus is the perfect place for pervert doctors to work. The girls just out of high school are away from home for the first time, with hormones raging, looking for sexual encounters and needing the pill. In my case I needed antibiotics but he wouldn’t give me the script until I agreed to a much needed breast and pelvic exam. Just like you said, one minute I was fully clothed sitting on the exam table with no chaperone because I was there for an ear problem, and five minutes later he had me naked on my back with legs in the air. I filed a complaint not because he coerced me into a full exam, but because the exam turned into a sexual massage and he wouldn’t stop until I had an unwanted orgasm. Still my complaint went nowhere.
I thought for sure other girls would come forward against him and he would finally get what he deserved but that never happened. I talked with girls who went to him for bc pills. Most of them didn’t want to talk about him and the few who did talk said it wasn’t that bad, they were looking to have sex anyway, and he did give them a script. They talked like it was a tit for tat situation. I guess when you are a young good looking doctor and you make college girls have orgasms on your exam table, they are too embarrassed or too appreciative to complain about it. Also I found out he only gave them a three month script so they were still dependent on him and had to return every three months for more “exams”.
It makes me think of the old practice of treating hysteria where the doctors masturbated their patients back to health. It’s still happening today except now they call it breast and pelvic exams. These pervert doctors can be brought down but as we’ve seen it takes a lot of women to come forward to cause an outrage large enough to cause action to be taken. It’s not helping for all these women to just lay there and take sexual assault for whatever reason they can justify.
Reading this made me feel quite sick. I’m sure a lot of those girls now regret what they went through to get those pills.
I don’t think they’d feel it was such a clever deal now.
I live in a university town and the doctor’s surgery at the university only has about a 25% uptake of cervical screening. The town health authorities are always trying to do something about it, because it brings down the average screening rate for the whole area to a very low uptake figure (much to my delight). But it is all down to the demographics of the place. Nearly all the students are thankfully under 25, so don’t get called up before then in UK for smear tests The lecturers and staff all live elsewhere or are too intelligent to fall for it, so only about a quarter turn up. I’m so pleased this has put a stop to this. I was about 28 when cervical screening was brought in in the UK. I really feel sorry for all those women who copped it when they were just 20. It was changed to age 25 about 2005 in England but Scotland kept screening 20 year olds until 2016, and there are some very sad stories of young Scottish women forced into having the test.
Hi Laura, I appreciate this may be tough for you, but have you considered making a new complaint of historic abuse against him? The climate does appear to have changed, although as with the clergy, the doctor’s office does seem to be hiding somewhat. I know of two women who were harrassed in the workplace by an older (more powerful) male many moons ago.
They filed a complaint at the time, and were basically laughed at and told in a manner of words that, “this is how it is”, or “suck it up”.
Recently, they tried again, and were simply asked for names, dates, details etc. As he is still in his employment, a full investigation is underway (looks like they were not the only complainants).
It might be, more women than realised complained about this doctor, either at the campus, or later on, throughout his career.
What is clear is, that a pap and a breast exam is not only medically unneccessary, but totally unneccessary in diagnosing an ear infection.
In some cases overseas (Australia, being one), courts have found that a doctor has acted out of gratification if it is shown that the pap/ breast exam was medically unneccessary to diagnosing the medical problem at hand. What you describe also sounds like abuse.
I can’t think how hard this must have been for you and other girls in your situation, having to live with the trauma of this experience.
It is horrifying what some women have endured at the hands of medical predators – I imagine he carried on assaulting women he fancied for many years – there’s a case going on here – sexual assaults back in the 70s and 80s, lots of women came forward, he’s now about 70 and claiming he has memory loss, how convenient?
This pervert would ask women to undress, stand naked in front of him and he’d thrust into their back, he claimed it was some sort of massage, I’m sure it was, but it’s certainly not medical. Complaints were made at the time but he carried on for decades. He was also a huge fan of vaginal and breast exams.
It’s disgraceful this sort of conduct was allowed to continue for decades, more proof that doctors were protected, assault women, don’t worry, we’ve got your back!
Apocalyptic Queen; I was so very wrong to say in my last post that: “It’s not helping for all these women to just lay there and take sexual assault for whatever reason they can justify.”. I’m sorry and I take that back. I am more frustrated with myself for not recognizing sooner what he was doing to me and not standing up to him during the exam. The young college women, myself included, were not prepared to be blindsided by doctors insisting breast and pelvic exams were important and absolutely necessary for our health. I never had this done to me before and didn’t know how long the procedure should take. I laid there thinking this was taking quite a while, and then after several more minutes thinking, this was way too long. But maybe it was normal so I let it go on until it seemed he was never going to stop. Being in that position with him between my legs, and in the middle of an internal exam, I knew I couldn’t just get up so I asked him if he was almost done. He said just a few more minutes and just kept going until he got the result he was looking for. He was just like the doctor for the USA gymnastics team who got off on getting girls off.
So I don’t blame his victims and I have to stop thinking I was weak and blaming myself. The best way to do that is to blame him. I’m going to find out if he still works there and I’m going to see about making a complaint to the AMA instead of the college health services. One complaint may go nowhere, but like you said, maybe other girls have made complaints and we can make him pay for what he has done. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Hi Laura, no need to apologise for anything worded in your comment, and certainly no need to blame yourself for anything.
These programmes thrive on the belief system, that there is something somehow wrong with us for refusing to put up with this test. Every one of us on this site has encountered that message via the media and medical professionals.
I wish you the very best of luck should you initiate another formal complaint.
I am not sure whether you are in the US or AUS, however there have been a few Australian court cases that I know of reported in the media, which suggests that any breast or pelvic exam undertaken that was not medically necessary is likely to be deemed assault.
There may be AMA or US Medical Association guidelines that may also assist with regards to what constitutes medically necessary procedures in this context.
Also, you already made one previous complaint, which can hopefully serve to bolster your complaint.
Plenty of resources available on these pages which could assist you further.
I wish you the very best of luck x
Yes, power, control, profits, sexual gratification, humiliation, misogynistic satisfaction, targets, ego – all directed at women. I don’t think they have any respect for our dignity, many express surprise that so many women have an issue with the speculum – how strange that many women would prefer a self test rather than just submit to an invasive, humiliating and often, painful test! Terribly strange (hardly!)
Not sure these attitudes will ever change until more women push back, at the moment I think there may be one attitude for informed women and another for the trusting, unsure, very young, those lacking confidence etc.
Can you imagine a doctor walking up to a random man and suggesting a testicular or rectal examination?
To think a doctor felt comfortable enough approaching a random woman and suggesting a Pap test…no doubt in my mind these creeps have a modus operandi too – spring the suggestion, throwing the woman off guard, putting her under pressure, targeting certain women, favouring certain settings.
They wonder why so many women reject male doctors today, in the days when we only had male doctors or almost all were male doctors, IMO, they didn’t serve us well…just look at the way the cervical screening program was set up in the 70s, they would never have adopted such a program aimed at men.
Ada, your Mum is 91, amazing, is she in good health?
My Mum is almost 87, she has dementia but still knows her children and close circle, she has good and bad days but physically, she’s as strong, and with no screening, she’s thoroughly enjoying life, no risk of biopsies, unnecessary surgery, complications after procedures etc.
Mum embraces life and is up for everything, she’s currently at the football with her 27 year old grandson. Wish she’d given up screening long before she did, the dementia started after a colonoscopy, they took her off her blood thinning medication for the procedure and her cardiologist believes she had a small stroke during the procedure. That was the start of the confusion so the dementia didn’t just happen, it was most likely a complication of the screening procedure. Mum has a great appetite too, apparently, that’s strange for someone her age.
No one will ever tell me screening is a no-brainer…
Mum got caught up in the pap testing nonsense, Mum and Dad were together at an early age, first boyfriend and girlfriend situation, no doubt in my mind my father didn’t stray – yet Mum had Pap tests every 2 years from her early 40s (about then) – not sure when she stopped testing. In those days, Mum thought doctors were Gods and didn’t question their authority or advice, she trusted them, that’s gone now too
My mum is a glorious battleship and has all her wits about her. She phones me most evenings to have a moan about the NHS, how fat and tattooed the young people are getting and how her TV channels have disappeared again. She adamantly refuses to have the internet, so is stuck with the failing TV aerial technology. I try to visit twice a month, but wish she didn’t live so far away. I get my criticism of medical treatments from her. She doesn’t suffer the medical profession gladly.
She’s had a few things thrown at her over the years, grudgingly accepted them, but then realised they do little good and are largely a waste of time. She’s had hip and knee replacements, but her main preoccupation now is her eyes and macular degeneration. Deafness she can live with but loss of her sight would upset her greatly as she loves her garden.
I am just about to go and visit her today, but the visit is a reluctant one.
My sister has been diagnosed with DCIS after breast screening. Mum still doesn’t know so my sister wants to travel down today and wants me to be there. My sister told me weeks ago, and on finding out I immediately sent her links to Baum, Bewley, McCartney but all too late, she has stepped onto the conveyor belt and there is no getting off. The first hospital wanted to carry out an automatic mastectomy, but she had to good sense to ask for a second opinion at a major hospital, where further biopsies and tests have been carried out, in the hope of reducing this to a lumpectomy, but the more tests they do the more they find, and surprise, surprise, they now claim to have found comedo necrosis, so mastectomy it is. She has now undergone countless visits and at least 25 biopsies of the one breast. I am so angry, after I tried to warn her in 2014. She is utterly devastated by the news. She emailed me, that she is in perfect health, has no symptoms and was all set to enjoy the summer with holidays. She is now faced with life changing, mutilating surgery with weeks in hospital and a lifetime of annual mammography, not to mention the psychological trauma of it all. Says she didn’t know anything about the DCIS scandal before diagnosis. (It is in the leaflet).
It made me realise that women are so blinded by the screening hype, that even when they see the Harding Centre icon array, which I sent her in 2014, they cannot understand it, and still believe that if screening is still offered it must be 100% right and the critics are wrong. I can only support her, but so angry. If only she hadn’t gone to that appointment…
Ada, so pleased to hear your Mum is doing well, fingers crossed with her eye sight. Mum has cataracts but doesn’t want the surgery, so far she’s managed, we hope it stays that way.
Hospital stays mean she loses precious time and there’s the risk of infection and complications, Mum now firmly prefers to do enjoyable things with her time.
So terribly sorry to hear about your sister.
Fear and doing the responsible thing drives screening, that’s the way it’s always been presented to women, they might now briefly mention over-diagnosis in the brochure but still come down heavily in favour of screening. I think many people tend to side with the “perceived” safest option. Even though our numbers are growing, many still view us as risk takers.
Will you regret your decision if you get breast cancer? Screening might have saved you…So many still have a simplistic view of screening, it’s not simple, far from it.
I’d be angry too, thankfully, both of my sisters have decided not to continue with breast screening.
Elizabeth, I think your mum is wise not to do too much. My mum had one cataract done and went very well, so she was happy to go through with the second, but this turned into a disaster. I took her, and was left waiting for quite some time, when they emerged with her saying it had not been successful, and she was booked for further eye surgery at another hospital, where a more complicated procedure could be completed. She said this second procedure was extremely painful, and she has never got the sight back in this eye. I often ask her if the eye injections for AMD (macular degeneration) have made an improvement or not and get a vague fuzzy answer. Some years ago she went through a facial procedure for melanoma which left her face black and peeling for a fortnight, only to discover that it was an optional suggestion and not something she had to do. Her skin looks fine and I think she’s been very wary of all these treatments since then. A lot of it is putting new tyres on a very old car…
Saw my sister yesterday, and she was in good spirits having decided to go for full reconstruction with tummy tuck flab relocated to the breast. She’s hoping to get it done next month and put an end to it, but once you are on that conveyor belt, there is no end, because it will be yearly check-ups from then on. The reconstruction will be an even bigger, longer operation than the mastectomy, but this is what she has chosen. It is a lot of surgery for someone who has no symptoms and is feeling 100% well. Am flabbergasted she didn’t know about DCIS before her diagnosis, after all I tried to tell her in 2014, when going through cancer treatment myself. It just goes to show how the “screening saves lives” mantra is embedded in people’s brains.
One revealing thing she did say was that the breast screening units are staffed almost entirely by young nurses/radiographers under 50 years old, some of them only in their 20s with very little idea of the implications of breast screening, and, while devoutly devoted to the cause of screening, were unable to answer any questions she had other than regurgitating the screening dogma from publicity leaflets. I found the same thing when I was getting treatment for endometrial cancer. Your contact with people who can really advise you is extremely limited, and the rest of the time you are swept along by semi-professionals who mean well, but are driving people relentlessly into an upward spiral of further treatments without any opportunity to stop and discuss.
There is an amazing difference between hospitals and what they are offering. Her nearest hospital gives all women with DCIS on 1 biopsy a mastectomy within 62 days, (incentive payments again). In total shock, she had the good sense to try a major teaching hospital elsewhere, and has now been told after countless biopsies that there is no urgency, and that she can take 6 months out to think things through. She has told me that she no longer wants this to drag on and has decided to get all the surgery done, so that she should be good again for Christmas. She gets my point that there is no difference in deaths between those who go for screening and those who don’t, but thinks that by treating things early, she will avoid additional radiotherapy and chemo if found at a symptomatic stage later. Of course there is a high chance that it may never progress at all.
Ada, I’m sorry your sister is going through this. Once DCIS is diagnosed, even if a woman knows intellectually that it will likely never harm her, her mind starts going to all the what-ifs and worst case scenarios and these feelings, along with coercion from her medical team, often compel her to go through treatments and surgeries. As you know, cases of DCIS have increased exponentially since mammography came into widespread use, but all these cases of “stage 0 cancer” or “pre-cancer” have not translated to fewer cases of invasive breast cancer or fewer deaths. My sister was diagnosed with a large invasive breast cancer several years ago that never showed up in any of the regular mammograms she had. She only discovered it herself because of breast changes. Thankfully she is doing well now, albeit having had a few scares, but feels very betrayed by this screening and all the radiation she subjected herself to over the years for nothing. I think our sisters’ cases illustrate how women are being lied to and sold a bill of goods with this screening.
Judy, I wish your sister well and hope she never gets a recurrence.
I think my sister’s shock is all too typical of most women. She was surprised to get her first invitation when just 48, 10 years ago. It was only this year that I sent her a link, which happened to mention the UK AgeX trial – they’ve added an additional 3 years call-up at either end of our programme that adds another 6 million women to mammography screening. It was only just then that she realised she had been put in a trial without being informed 10 years ago.
In 2014 there was a UK government investigation into the way mammography screening is conducted in the UK, and the breast screening leaflet was revised as a result of this and DCIS and the AgeX trial are now briefly mentioned inside, but it is nowhere near explicit or clear what these actually entail and the harms they can lead to. I believe that many women, like my sister, probably read through the leaflet from 10 years ago, and after a few mammos don’t bother to read the leaflet again when it comes in the post. The cover has always looked the same, and most women would not be aware that important revisions have since been made to the leaflet. She is very much between a rock and a hard place at the moment. It really puts women in a terrible situation.
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2019/07/22/what-quality-looks-like-when-offering-screening/
Quality fraud more like.
From their site: “Is variation in screening uptake inherently a problem?
How do we distinguish between non-participation as a problem that needs tackling and that which represents an informed decision to decline the invitation made?”
That’s a good bit of what takes quality away from them! They DON’T accept that a woman has made an informed decision to not screen, and instead view her refusal as “a problem that needs tackling”. It is tackled, but at the expense of any actual physical care she needs which brought her into the clinic. Pestering women for these tests is NOT “quality” – it is sexual harassment and may be targeting women with disabilities – simply because those with serious or chronic condition – which can be construed as disabilities – visit the clinic more, and are often much more dependent on getting care – they know their lives depend on receiving care. When screening becomes harassment, when there is an implication of not getting treatment needed for life or for quality of life, this becomes coercion which is a form of force.
We have a word for putting objects or body parts inside a woman’s vagina and/or anus in violation of her consent, and that word is not “quality”.
Beth, I believe that this inequalities issue is another smokescreen to push uptake. They’re so desperate to push up attendance that they’re targetting anybody now and the disabled are easy prey. Of course, all kinds of people and charities are coming forward campaigning on this issue saying it’s because they really, really care about disabled people… There is one wheelchair-bound mother who is campaigning for hoists in GP surgeries to lift women onto the smear test couch. Says it’s impossible for her to get onto her doctor’s couch and she is facing possible death because her doctor’s practice won’t buy one for her. Of course all these people could self-test if they knew about it.
If that wheelchair-bound mother has become hysterical that she will (soon) die of CC, it sounds like she’s bought into the outsized-push for dwelling on that problem, to the exclusion of others. If they really want to test her, even if she cannot self-test (I don’t know her physical limitations), they could come to her home to test. Certainly she has a way to get into bed. It sounds like she really “needs” to be put in stirrups for this gawd-awful test. Then, if it’s abnormal, how are they going to get her into and onto the things for follow-on testing? The time might be better spent with the problem that’s causing her to be handicapped, as well as cardiac problems worstened by inactivity, and the possibiltiy of blood clots from spending a LOT of time in a wheelchair, if she’s very active with her upper body.
What’s lost is that cardiac problems remains a top killer of women, as well as men. CC doesn’t make the top 100! Why the outsized hysteria? If I went to the doctor hysterical about renal cancer, demanding to be tested, with no signs, symptoms, or family history of it, the doctor would try to talk me out of it, Yet, it’s more common than CC.
This is the lady. As someone said in the comments – how come she has 2 children but not able to have a test? Why doesn’t she campaign for self-testing? Far cheaper than a hoist.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/disabled-mum-urges-nhs-to-provide-equal-access-to-smear-tests-in-petition-with-more-than-100000-a4042836.html#comments
She said: “You hear people getting cervical cancer younger and younger…” SURE, you hear about that. CC in young women is VERY RARE, and more often you’re hearing of people being DIAGNOSED with CC younger and younger – without any benefit but with significant harm.
I’m certainly for equal accessibility, but she sounds like she’s advocating for accessibility for something which has a higher chance to damage and limit lives rather than save anyone.
Nonetheless, like many women she’s been frightened by the propaganda. Like an able-bodied woman, she should be permitted to get what she’s been scared into – or all of this health scare was literally for nothing other than increase her anxiety. Truth in advertising would be a better way to go.
If the lady in the wheelchair would like a smear test, all she needs is a referral to a colposcopy clinic. This will be at a hospital with the necessary equipment that everyone can access. I suspect she already knows this.
I can remember being told this years ago Mint, at a hospital appointment. I told them I don’t have smears anymore as my GP was downright brutal. They told me that anyone who has a bad smear experience can use the hospital clinic instead.
Needless to say, the lady in the wheelchair seems to have been championed by Jo’s Tosh.
I’m pleased they actually posed this question “How do we distinguish between non-participation as a problem that needs tackling and that which represents an informed decision to decline the invitation made?”
However posing it’s fine, having healthcare professionals actually listen and accept an informed decision is quite another. I’ve seen a number of rabid nurses on social saying it’s their job to encourage women to screen. That is absolutely NOT their job and until this mindset is actively stopped and punished, this silliness will continue.
It’s effectively the same faux-choice that is used in examples of dysfunctional parenting. “You have a choice between the chocolate cake and the brussels sprouts.” The unspoken part is, “If you choose the chocolate cake, I’ll spank you and send you to your room. If you eat the brussels sprouts, you can watch TV.” The child in this ludicrous example really has no choice.
Sadly, the grown-up version of this is the “informed consent” we (supposedly) have in the medical setting. We can choose between having a pap or not. If we choose the pap, they’ll give it to us, followed by whatever other medical care we need – although perhaps after we schedule another appointment – making the problem worse from waiting a week or 3. If we choose to not have the pap, the rest of the appointment will be spent talking us into it, bullying us into it, and often insinuating that they will not treat the problem we came in for.
This is not a choice. It’s that we must allow them to penetrate us to get any sort of medical care. This can be coercion, which negates consent. We have a word describing penetration without consent….
From the limited amount of literature for nurses I’ve seen, I don’t think that nursing staff ever get to hear about the downsides of screening or about the whole argument surrounding false positives and unreliability. I also don’t think it has ever entered their way of thinking that people have a choice and the system is optional. Their understanding of the maths involved is certainly weak. Unfortunately, they are often the first and only point of contact for many members of the public who deserve balanced information on a much higher level and this information is nowhere to be found except on FWEO.
Recently came across a male GP on twitter asking Susan Bewley what the breast screening icon array is, and where he could find it. He had never heard of it before or The Harding Center for Risk Literacy. If the docs don’t know about it what hope is there for the rest of them?
Piece in that’s life magazine this week women who don’t attend their smears will be sent a self test kit in the post is this a good idea? 1 woman for it one against. .
Overcoming barriers to self-testing? They have been doing everything possible to block it over the years.
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/overcoming-barriers-to-cervical-screening-self-col
The self-testing is better than the constant pestering to get screened by the GP or nurse or somebody. However, they don’t mention how or by whom the follow-on tests are done. Those cannot be done by the woman herself, are painful and damaging. Part of the reason I will not have a pap is what would I do with any possible results? If they’re negative, great. I take no action. If they are “insufficient sample”, then I’m back to square 1, and have to put my feet back up, get another pap test and pay for two of them. If it’s abnormal, I get to have a LONG test, with my vagina cranked open wide, as they pull off pieces of my cervix without anesthesia. Having pieces of a sensitive area of my body pulled off with no pain control is out of the question. Then, there’s the infection risk: I haven’t been a patient in a hospital since 1998 when I did not have to go back to be treated for an antibiotic-resistant infection! If that’s positive too, then I get to go in for a LEEP – to have part of my cervix amputated – also out of the question. And a cone biopsy then, which is also out of the question for similar reasons. Then hysterectomy (goodby uterine orgasms). And chemo – and it’s in an advance directive that I refuse that. And/or radiation therapy. (Yeah. More ionizing radiation – increasing cancer risk.) Getting all of this when I don’t even have cancer seems absurd! But, it’s more likely than having cervical cancer.
I don’t want this cascade of interventions, all at a high cost since I’m in the US, when there’s little risk that I’d even have cervical cancer. Why would I start it? Or, is CC like boiling water – if you just keep it under surveillance it will never boil – or become cancerous.
I feel the same way Bethkz !!!! Reading this made me feel a lil bit better about myself!!!!
Quite a long report, but is the latest I’ve seen on how the new NHS programme may look in the future.
When UK is fully switched to HPV testing later this year, this report has found that those testing HPV- at 40, or “possibly younger” could be offered next test 10 years later. It also found that even if a woman gets an HPV infection in middle-age, it is highly unlikely for this to turn cancerous. I hope this will stop all those wanting testing to go on in later life.
It has also found that recalling HPV+ women annually until infection clears ( as now), is far too frequent, and could be extended to 3 year retesting. The only unfortunate thing is that they may reduce the age at first test to 22 with a follow up test at 25, to sort and follow more closely those with most hazardous types of HPV, and let others have much reduced lifelong recall.
It is all beginning to mirror the Dutch programme very closely, many years too late.
https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hta/hta23280/#/s6
Hello,
I’m new here and just reading through the discussions. I came across this on false positives in HPV testing.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405852118301423
A quote from the paper: “It is impossible to weigh exactly the cost of missing a cancer against the harm done by hundreds or thousands of false-positive HPV tests. Nonetheless, we are forced to consider such trade-offs, and need to better minimize harm to untold numbers of women as we increase cervical-screening sensitivity by use of HPV testing.”
The real-life story recounted at the end of the page sums up some of the concerns.
Oh, the irony! The Pap test causes huge amounts of overdiagnosis & overtreatment, yet they’ve never cared about that. And now we’re looking at a test which *gasp* women can perform themselves, they’re suddenly concerned about potential harms.
Yep. Delay self-testing for as long as possible by insisting on study after study to prove its worth, yet at the same time insist all women still need to trot along for an invasive exam which has NEVER been through any trials.
Quite obviously trying to protect the industry, not women.
What worries me is HPV testing has similar problems to pap testing.
Just getting a HPV self test might be ok but I would want control of the access to test results to be private and not have to shared with a health professional without my permission. All the registry programmes seem to not want that privacy and control by the woman of her own medical information.
Interesting read:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190731110406.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fhealth_medicine%2Fcervical_cancer+%28Cervical+Cancer+News+–+ScienceDaily%29
A single test for women has been shown to aid in predicting which cases of precancerous cervical disease will become more serious, helping with decisions on whether or not surgery is needed, according to a new study.
Never ceases to amaze me how they talk about women having choices in treatment like this. In reality, women are pushed through treatments like cattle, with most having very little understanding of the entire process.
Daily fail today ladies and I kid you not but women who go through stress such as divorce are more lik to die of CC
Considering the divorce rate in the UK is around 42%, we should be dropping like flies!
Haven’t you heard? We WOULD BE DROPPING LIKE FLIES if we didn’t put our feet up in stirrups and have those nice gyns scrape our cervix every year! You know, even before so many women had the stress of careers and the stress of divorce, it was the #1 killer of women! You know, back around 1900, the life expectancy from birth was only about 45 years.
We need to be thankful we don’t have to live with all that fear now.
We just need to forget about little things that made us more comfortable, like sanitary drinking water, indoor plumbing, much lower rates of tuberculosis, heated homes, no longer cooking over open fireplaces, much-lower rates of dysentery, polio, flu, smallpox, tetnus, etc, access to fresh fruits and vegetables all year, refrigeration, generally adequate nutrition…. the little stuff that never made much difference.
http://www.phrp.com.au/issues/july-2019-volume-29-issue-2/lessons-from-the-renewal-of-the-national-cervical-screening-program-in-australia/
Lessons learned from the roll out of the new Australian program. The colposcopy “blow-out” sounds horrendous.
They knew that would happen but I suspect throwing young women under the bus was to appease vested interests who stood to lose a lot of business with the move to hpv testing.
The lifetime risk of colposcopy and biopsy (and sometimes more than that) under our old program was a shocking 77%…that’s clear by the number of women who tell me they’ve had bad or pre-cancerous cells off…mostly before age 30. (And often more than once)
The new program based on evidence would have greatly reduced over-investigation and over-treatment but going against the evidence, doing too many tests and starting at 25, was, in my opinion, a sweetener to keep mouths shut, vested interests could have scared the herd.
So to keep women in the dark, I think excess was viewed as the safest option.
Why do they always say we were the first country to move to hpv testing?
I think the Netherlands were the first to move to hpv testing…in January, 2017
Honestly, they can say what they like, and no one corrects them
What a load of nonsense and stereotypical tripe. The types that still trot out the idea that women cannot function rationally without a man and become emotiomal, chaotic messes when there isn’t one around to keep them in check!
Yes, divorce can be stressful, especially the childcare and financial implications, but many, many women have a new lease of life after a divorce. Study after study has consistently suggested the outcomes for women after divorce are not as bleak as these rags make out. Most recent studies suggest that it is men who often have the worst outcomes. Many women eventually thrive on their new-found independence and freedom. Yet, the implication is that they will likely be at risk of a nasty disease and death as a result.
This study is probably influenced by underlying prejudicial bias about women and their place in society.
Sorry – rant over.
Hi 🙂 I’ve come on here a couple of times anonymously, and I have been greatly satisfied with the support I’ve gotten from many other amazing women here ❤ I just have a question… or two or three lol
So, even if the cost is a little more, are pelvic ultrasounds (NOT transvaginal ultrasounds) just as good as the invasive pelvic exams, if not better? Good as in accurate? I've suspected many times in my life before going on the pill that I might have endometriosis, because my periods were NIGHTMARES. They were u n h o l y. Thank goodness the pill saved my freaking life, like seriously solved EVERY problem I had before and I've had absolutely no side effects that I know of… But my periods were extremely painful and pretty much disabling because I literally could not do anything until the pain finally went away. Couldn't work, go to school, or even sit down and relax and play my favorite video games or draw or something. It got to the point where the pain meds would only dull the pain enough for me to barely walk around but only for like 30 minutes, then come back full force. I would be bedridden for 3 days straight. My whole cycle would be shorter than 27 days and very rarely would actually be a full 28 days. I was extremely heavy most of the time and the pain was so much I've been close to vomiting several times, and I'd get that awful lower back pain. Sometimes it did feel like the pain would go to the bowel area and I'd feel constipated, or get diarrhea. No in between. That can't be normal… but of course, once I went on the pill, all that bullsh** disappeared and I have normal cycles finally. I wouldn't know about pain during sex though when I wasn't on the pill because I didn't lose my virginity until my wedding night with my husband, and I had already been on the pill for about a year and a half, so I was already well protected and stuff. So, as of now of course, sex is not painful for me. I understand that not all women have all the obvious symptoms of endometriosis, but all those horrible period symptoms I had BEFORE going on the pill made me suspect that I might have it, but I still refused to get a pelvic exam because of how horribly invasive it is. So, with all this being said, would pelvic ultrasounds be a good alternative to a pelvic exam? If I really feel that I may have endometriosis, I kinda want to know, just without getting a stranger's fingers shoved into my vagina
Technically a pelvic ultrasound may be more accurate because it shows images of the internal pelvic structures rather than just feeling the outline of them as is done in a pelvic exam. However, whether this test is “good” is another story. It often picks up benign findings like ovarian cysts that usually go away on their own, but once found on ultrasound, may lead to further monitoring and possibly surgery. In other words, ultrasounds are a good way for a woman to jump on the medical merry go round. Whether or not you have endometriosis, It sounds like you’re fortunate to have gotten relief from your difficult periods via the pill, which limits the amount of uterine lining that builds up each cycle. Personally since you’re feeling well I think you should leave well enough alone, but if you do decide to seek further testing I know you’ll go into it with your eyes wide open. .
I am sorry for your suffering. I suggest that you see a naturopathic doctor for your endometriosis. Changing your diet, lifestyle and taking vitamins and herbal treatments might be helpful. Some ideas are lorna vaderhaege supplements, castor oil packs, diets eliminating bloat, yoga, epsom salt baths, depletion tampons.
Conventional medicine will just offer your pain meds and a hysterectomy when you are done having children. You might have to endure multiple pelvic exams, hysteroscopy, endometrial sampling and other tests are are invasive and painful from gynaecologists before surgery to remove your uterus and ovaries. Paying for a pelvic ultrasound to confirm you have endometriosis when your body is telling you something is wrong is not going solve anything. You know from your symptoms that you might have it. Just seeing where the tissue is on an ultrasound does nothing.
Thank you both for your responses! That’s good to keep in mind… good lord… this is ridiculous that we have to go through, what Judy said, the “medical merry go round.” Jeez, if they care about women’s health so much, why do they jump to so many unnecessary conclusions?! Ugh, I swear it’s just to get their hands all up in your business
I think, as far as what you guys have said, I’ll probably just have to stick with the pill, because it’s been the only thing that has been able to relieve my symptoms. I have not had nearly as much pain with a period since my last period I had BEFORE the pill. I’ve still had a little bit of cramping, but they’re so small that I can actually go about my day like it’s nothing, obviously because the pain is nowhere near the degree it was before, haha. I guess the only thing I’d have to worry about is fertility… I heard that it can affect your fertility, and I do plan on having kids eventually. Not really anytime soon because I’m still in college and have a year left, but I’m 24 now and I still think I have some time left. Other than that, as far as periods go, the pill literally saved my life, and I’m ever so grateful for it!
Daily fail today ladies 26 yr old with CC devastated she’ll never have kids following hysterectomy is begging the Government to lower smear age to 16….
Yuk! I think this must be the article, The Daily Fail churns these stories out almost on a weekly basis.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7326525/Healthy-woman-diagnosed-cervical-cancer-25-begs-Government-lower-smear-test-age.html
Have just read of a 30 year old Downs Syndrome (virgin) lady put through a smear test “because of her medication”. Someone has asked what medication could this could possibly be. Sister replied that her sister is on the minipill and injections for psoriasis and that the smear was necessary in the UK because of this and for the family’s “peace of mind”. It’s so sad that GPs promote such ignorance.
Funny isn’t it, people always cite “people of mind” as a reason for screening for cervical cancer but rarely in conjunction with the 100 odd other known cancers.
It’s almost like they’re brainwashed by the ‘awareness’ campaigns, health professionals bullying and ignorant of the real risks….
I felt sick reading it. And then there was the usual family member who has died of it and the personal experience of having abnormal cells removed. Some people are just so thick.
At work today I had to endure colleagues talking about the menopause and all the terrible symptoms they’ve suffered for years, but most of what they were talking about is absolutely nothing to do with the menopause at all, but because they are plain and simple stupid people who do a lot to make themselves ill.
Can I last until retirement in the NHS? God give me strength!
“peace of mind”…. sorry fat hands strike again.
So, what is the end for this? Perhaps all baby girls need to have their cervix, uterus, ovaries, and breasts removed to prevent them from becoming cancerous?
Commented but nothing showing yet. I am disturbed by her photos with all the smiles looking fab, she seems to be enjoying all the attention, this is not how cancer victims should act. She did not actually need the screening test, what she required was immediate referral for diagnostic tests!
Chas it says comments r moderated which probably means only omg smears are fab will be allowed…..!
Moreover, she probably does NOT actually have cancer, particularly at age 26. Hormonal changes can give false positives. At worst, she’s got Atypical Squamous Cells of Uncertain Significance – NOT cancer. She MAY end up a survivor of cancer treatments. 😦
Misery loves company, so why not screen all of those 16 and up (even if it’s their first penetrative experience), and virgins cannot have HPV nor possibly benefit from screening – although they can be harmed. The harm involved of having one’s first penetrative sexual experience being done coercively in a medical setting using an object that features blades is unfathomable.
Hi Beth,
I wanted to respond to your comment since it spoke exactly to my situation. My first penetrative experience was being coerced into having a speculum forced into my body about 2 weeks after my 18th birthday. To this day I am deeply traumatized and will never let anyone touch me again. I will never have a partner, spouse, or even casual intimacy, it is all completely out of the question. I still think about the experience decades later, and often I think about it daily.
Hi Rose,
I’m sorry that happened to you. I know with some of my medical abuses, I too think of them on a daily basis – more so on the coercion that happened to me nearly a year ago now, and things that happened over the last decade. It’s one symptom of PTSD. Those bother me – and seem to be harder to get over and through than my childhood abuse. At least with the childhood abuse, I was eventually able to believe that there’s nothing I did to cause it, nothing I could have done to avoid it. I was able to remind myself that I am now an adult, those people are long gone, and cannot hurt me now – and similar attacks would face the consequences. With medical abuse, “oh, it wasn’t that bad” or “It was just a medical procedure TO SAVE YOUR LIFE” (It’s amazing how many times I’ve been rescued from the brink of death, when many people lived much longer than me a few centuries ago!) I use some of the same things: It was that bad. It is that bad. PLUS, with the medical abuse, I know that I am not safe today – that the same thing can and will happen when I seek medical treatment in the future – and know I’ll probably need more as I get older.
You were RAPED when you were just 18. You did not give informed consent – or any consent to be penetrated in that way! Coercion negates consent, and this will continue as long as people and courts give them a medical loophole which is a fiction. For instance, if someone is stabbed to death, it doesn’t matter if it is a random person with a kitchen knife or a health care worker with a scalpel. The object caused death, and was being used in an inappropriate manner.
I’ve been seeking more ways to avoid the pap coercion, and have my actual, diagnosed medical conditions addressed, medicated, and tested. But, no. This rare cancer trumps it.
What does having bubble baths have to do with hpv? That is one of the questions they are entering into the cervical cancer screening database along with age of first period, age of first sex, how many children, if you use tampons, sex toys or have anal sex. The first three items might seem like perfectly acceptable medical history questions. The rest are “none of your business”. Now I give “none of your business” when I get asked for when was your last pap test.
I did not realise that apparently many are linked with the birth control pill, many what I wonder? Abnormals CIN or real cancer. It definitely states CANCER though.
If that is the case then there would be a hell of a lot more lives saved than the guestimated 3000,4000,5000 – depending where you read of course, but in this particular article
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7326525/Healthy-woman-diagnosed-cervical-cancer-25-begs-Government-lower-smear-test-age.html
it states it on the right hand side just before the video, and the source of this was from none other than Cancer Research UK!!
I have no idea how many thousands of women use the pill but whatever that figure is they are saying 10% cervical cancer is caused by it.
•Contraceptive pill – linked to 10 per cent of cases WHAT A LOAD OF SHITE!
She says:
‘The legal consent age for a woman to have sex is 16 years old, as we are all aware this often happens before the age of 16.”
She speaks for herself. It reminds me of a letter I once read from a Belgian gynaecologist criticising the British programme, on its complete absence of honest truths about how women get cervical cancer, & the WHO also says much the same thing, that the biggest risk is having underage sex as a teenager. Other countries promote abstinence in schools and in sex education, but UK seems to have high teenage pregnancy rates compared to other western European countries, yet never raises this as a major risk for cervical cancer. . Instead of chavs like this woman and Jade Goody promoting screening, the message should be to encourage girls not to sleep around when they are at school. This woman is trying to normalise the underage sex she clearly experienced as an under 16 year old when it is illegal, but thinks she is right to sign petitions to “change the law” to have screening accommodate this.These people just don’t get it that they brought this upon themselves.
It can be more complicated than that. Some people, including girls, had sex when we were extremely young – toddlers, or at least pre-pubescent, and had no say in the matter when it happened. We had no control over what happened to our bodies, who penetrated them, when, or how. We still don’t when coercive pap screening is “offered” to us. We can choose, but are denied other healthcare if we do, and are coerced and bullied… much like when we were children. It’s hard to deal with, and undermines mental health treatment we may have gotten that told us we were adults, and now WE decide on who, how, when, and whether our bodies are penetrated.
Yes, I don’t mean to criminalise or blame children who suffered sexual abuse, as that’s a completely separate issue, but those girls who are aware of what they are doing and having sex whilst still at school. There were a couple in my class at school, who had babies at about 16. They were right show offs who threatened other girls to join them.
This lady in the article is almost boasting about underage sex being the norm. It isn’t and it makes me mad that all women in the UK are treated like this, because of these chavs. It’s all part of the British programme to convince all women that we are all Jade Goodies and all have the same risk. Horrible.
We had underaged sex against our will, which they now say greatly increases CC risk, which can only be reduced if we let someone else penetrate us against our will. Lowering the age of consent won’t “fix” the problem, but it might allow medicalized rape at earlier ages.
Women aren’t believed when we say that we’re not having sex, or if we say that we’re only having sex with one other person in a mutually-monogamous relationship. It is considered the “norm”, by them, that everyone is having a LOT of sex, and unsafe sex.
Underaged girls who are having sex are often having it through a lot of coercion – not just from the other girls who proudly sleep around (and have early pregnancies), but the boys do it to – of course for their own reasons. Their lines haven’t changed in hundreds of years, but they can always get girls to fall for them.
It is illegal for an adult to have sex with an underage child. Period. That law needs to be enforced, rather than assume all girls have been sexualized very early. Although… statistics being what they are… that isn’t extremely far from the truth.
The message should be that YOU are in control of your body, YOU decide who penetrates it when or how. Anyone forcing or coercing you to be penetrated against that will is a criminal, and must be reported, and it must be investigated and someone arrested/tried when there is evidence for it happening..
We’re getting into basic human rights of bodily autonomy and bodily integrity now. See https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-law-journal/article/nature-and-significance-of-the-right-to-bodily-integrity/79703F3BE9C5C21BB76338C050E951BC/core-reader for a long discussion of that right.
Oh and on Cancer Research UK it actually states the following:
“Research shows that cervical screening prevents at least 2,000 cervical cancer deaths each year in the UK”
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cervical-cancer/getting-diagnosed/screening/about
So less than everywhere else I have read! This really has to be the worst BS screening programme ever!
Another thing from the daily mail article, it says she was diagnosed in November 2018 – so why oh why are the pictures saying tests were in May 2019 6 months later, afterall she went due to bleeding so didn’t need a smear test she needed diagnostic tests immediately not 6 months later!
“Emily-Rae Rushmer was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer at the age of 25 in November 2018. She is pictured in May 2019 at hospital to have tests”
Anyway, I am taking a break next but will catch up with all your fab comments on my return.
Just seen piece in telegraph saying due to narrow doorways and lack of hoisting equipment disabled women are being denied smears and it’s wrong because they save lives. This was yesterday. There was another piece a while back somewhere else saying same thing….
Su rely if these women want smears a nurse could do it in their home or hospital bed? With the assistance of a carer or other medic?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/narrow-doors-no-hoists-disabled-women-cant-have-life-saving/
I get the feeling that many of these women have made an informed choice and are more than happy to not have the bother of the test. Trust Jo’s Tosh to come up with this nonsense. They’ve always got to portray women as pathetic, helpless imbeciles. This charity is so insulting to women.
I’ve not seen one single article that disabled women are up in arms they can’t access breast screening even though it kills more than CC…..
I’ve never had a mammogram. My husband had a diagnostic mammogram a few months ago. He says that he had to STAND in the mammography machine – in his case, for about 20 minutes – he got a lot more images taken than one gets in a screening mammography. He says that for a couple of the pictures, he had to stand at a very awkward and uncomfortable angle. I know that I could not even get into that position!
What of women who are confined to wheelchairs? How about the many elderly women who have trouble standing very still in a mammography machine, even for 5 minutes?
Or, is breast cancer screening unimportant for them? I’m sure that with the hysteria that these “awareness campaigns” gin up, some of these disabled and elderly women are panicking that they can’t get their boobs squashed.
My Mom, who passed away in 1997 from post-polio syndrome, and was confined to a wheelchair for decades before she was confined to a bed, never mentioned that anyone ever suggested that she get a mammogram. She got her annual paps though – using a lift to get on the examination table, and a nurse positioned her legs.
Kat, I’ve seen that Jo’s Tosh are really launching into this “disabled women denied smears campaign”. It’s all over twitter and they are asking more disabled women to come forward and be promoted as poor helpless disabled women who are denied smears. They’ve got that young woman with the 2 children, who says she needs a hoist but her GP surgery won’t buy one for her, and another older lady with muscular dystrophy who has been all over the tabloids. Saw that the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK is going to run a joint campaign with Jo’s. This is such a complaint about nothing, as these women have little excuse if they want it so badly. It’s really sick what pathetic claims these charities are making.
A disgraceful waste of public funds given in good faith to a bunch out to have a good time “raising awareness”.
Same anonymous person on here again from last week!
So, I KNOW that cervical cancer is extremely rare. However, somewhere listed that long term use of oral contraceptives is a risk of cervical cancer. That’s the only thing I’m afraid of, because I NEED birth control to ease my awful period symptoms… I have heard that for most women, after having their first child, their periods are much better, but I’m afraid that mine will go back to what they used to be if I don’t take birth control after I have my first child (I’m not pregnant now btw) so I’m afraid that I’ll just need birth control for the rest of my life until I encounter menopause… I mean, they did specify that it’s just the oral contraceptives like the pill, but what about the shot or the rod or… something?? Will that make a difference? I still don’t that I’ll be in THAT much risk of cancer but still, I just want to be sure and safe, and away from pap smears and pelvic exams 😄
Even if there is a slightly increased risk for cervical cancer there is also a benefit to long term pill use and that is a reduction of your risk of ovarian cancer, the most deadly gynecological cancer of all. This type of cancer is rare too, but still much more common than cervical cancer and far more deadly. I hope you’re able to obtain your pills without invasive exams, btw.
Even if there is a slightly increased risk of CC from hormonal contraceptives, this gets into the grave misunderstanding of RELATIVE RISK vs ABSOLUTE RISK. Let’s say, for instance, that it doubles the risk of CC. There is an overall lifetime risk of 0.65% of CC, so if it’s doubled, that’s a 1.3% risk – which is still not a high risk. As women take the contraceptive pill for various reasons, including menstrual cramps or heavy periods as well as for contraceptive use, it does NOT follow that women on the pill suddenly become sluts who have unprotected sex with everyone! Absolute risk remains small, although the relative risk is high. So, the pap-pushers glom onto this relative risk and tell us we need to be penetrated frequently.
Then, there are other relative/absolute risks. Take heart disease, which is the cause of death of more than half of women. The pill increases the relative risk of that slightly – but it translates into a MUCH higher absolute risk, considering how many women have heart disease or die of heart disease. But, that’s not as much fun or as invasive to test for, so women aren’t being looked at for heart conditions, and treated much less aggressively if we have a heart attack than is a man with the same condition.
Giving birth to a child might make these menstrual problems for which the pill is prescribed better – but at what cost? If a woman were to get pregnant, and do what the medical system expects, she will have a LOT of invasive exams, and subject to harmful interventions. She’d probably get penetrated fewer times in her life if she just was a good girl and submitted to a pelvic/pap test every time they wanted to give it to her for the pill.
Thankfully I’ve managed to steer clear of invasive exams when getting my pills!! Thankfully I haven’t had pushy doctors doing that to me. They HAVE told me of course that it “needs to be done soon because you’re sexually active now” (because somehow I guess my husband’s semen will just poison my insides or something because that’s TOTALLY how it works 🙄) but thankfully they haven’t told me “it’s for my own good” or forced me or anything!
Hi Anon.
Hmm. I’m not entirely convinced that the pill increases your risk, and even if it does, that risk is still tiny.
They do seem to clutch at anything ‘linked’ to cervical cancer and use it as a stick to beat women into submission. Every cervix is ‘high risk’ when there’s a price tag on it.
I do think there’s a possibility the pill could raise the chances of getting a false positive pap due to the hormonal changes it causes, at least if it’s early days and your body is still adjusting.
Anyway, I do recall seeing a paper some years ago where they theorised the pill could increase your cancer risk, but that seemed to be based on the notion that every women who takes the pill is using it for contraception, will become a raging nympho and practice unsafe sex, and will thus become riddled with STI’s including HPV.
BTW I had terrible periods in my younger days, I often ended up curled up on the floor crying in pain.
The pill didn’t help me, though, but then there are so many different types I probably could have found one that helped if I’d persevered, but I got sick of dealing with idiot medics and there intrusive inappropriate questions and gave up after a few years.
Even though we’re not ‘required’ to have pelvics and paps here in the UK to get the pill, it can be an uphill struggle to get a correct diagnosis & treatment.
Anyway, I can safely say that mine got much better over time – I’m now in my late forties and when the cramps get too insistent a few paracetamol shuts them up. When my periods were at their worst no painkillers would dull the pain. And I too was advised it would improve once I had children… never had any, though.
Sorry guys, the Anon post directly under Judy was my previous fudged attempt.
Reading about all the PR stunts Jo’s Tosh keeps pulling, this springs to mind:
Oh JT
How do I loathe thee
Let me count the ways…
Thanks Kate for the clarification, I moved the previous post now.
I like what springs to mind for you 🙂
Ada couldn’t agree with u more!! Jos plus muscular dystrophy. Vomitable
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/257W9JK
Bolton (UK) Clinical Commissioning Group is trying to work out why women don’t want to attend cervical screening. You don’t have to live there to take part in their survey. They’ve even included a box for “Informed choice”. I nearly fainted.
I took great pleasure in completing the survey and explaining why cervical screening is something I don’t and won’t be doing.
It’s so strange, they’re still beating the drum about why women don’t want to attend.
With anything else, people would get the hint about not being interested. People decline and invite, they decline an invite but for some reason with smears they just cannot get their heads around it.
I’ve completed the survey. I said that there are no barriers to screening. This is an excuse made by the screening mafia to explain why the uptake is low. As I never tire of saying, if someone wants screening, they will make time.
I said similar in that there are no barriers. Women would go if it was something they really wanted to do.
I filled that survey in and told them a number of truths about cervical screening and why I think the uptake for cervical screening is going down. I’d love to see the face or faces of whoever’s going to read the answers I’ve put down
I too filled in survey giving my opinions of the cervical screening programme and why women don’t go.
Bolton has a very high BAME population . I shuddered reading the buddy scheme suggestions
I’ve filled it in, but I’m supposed to be doing my housework!!!
It booted me out when I ticked off I live outside the UK, but good work to those able to participate. The more we make our voices heard, the better the chances they will reverberate.
Hi all. I’m sure there’ll be a huge furore Bout smears again in the UK as the telegraph this week reports the wife of our PM Boris Johnson has cervical cancer. …of course she urges us to attend our smears…..
She doesn’t say what stage it was. I’m wary because often women with CIN 3 think they have or had cervical cancer when they haven’t. And yes, cue the media rush that we must all get our smears!! Not bloody likely…
So true Ozphoenix. Also our beloved daily fail has jumped on the bandwagon and is running the story. So far my comments have been allowed…..
The women who’ve had CIN3 and going on about being cancer survivors so “Get your smears, Ladies” seem to miss the fact that they are NOT cancer survivors, but rather CC TREATMENT survivors.
No take that back. My comments were taken down
Interesting that this individual seems to have been diagnosed and be free of cancer in a few weeks. It’s also interesting that this person has a new book out soon.
That’s what I thought. A test in January led to treatments in June and July? Surely, this super rich lawyer with the very best in private healthcare didn’t have to wait 6 months for cancer treatment????
Not just a book, but possibly her own cancer charity and well-woman clinic coming soon?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/11/marina-wheeler-tells-of-cervical-cancer-diagnosis-boris-johnson
Even the language in the write up is suspiciously vague. A routine check “revealed the problem” which “led to procedures.” If the”problem” was indeed cervical cancer, what was the stage? And what were the procedures? Why is it that with anything in the media covering women’s health, the story is always long on emotion and short on facts?
Revealed the problem in January. Led to procedures in June-July. If the problem was cervical cancer (or any cancer, infection, dysfunction, or so forth), why did it take 6 months to figure out they should do some “procedures”? Something is rotten about this, and stinks of either overuse, overdiagnosis, or just plain something pretty minor.
It seems that any time any woman has “something wrong” that requires some “procedures”, the belief is “Oh, it MUST BE CERVICAL CANCER!” I’ve seen it in the press (seldom provable), and seen it among people in my extended family. “Aunt Minnie had cancer (in her girlie parts). IT MUST BE CERVICAL CANCER!” If you ask Aunt Minnie, she’ll say, “Yeah, I had ovarian cysts” “I had fiberoid tumors.” or even “I had uterine cancer.” Once they’re convinced of CC, there is no amount of information that can ever dissuade them, so it seems.
There is truly a conspiracy somewhere, for reasons that must be driven by perversion, to make the risk of this illness seem much higher than it really is. Three articles I saw yesterday about it – Boris Johnstone’s ex-wife, the disabled women who aren’t getting tested, and a story about a woman who was sexually abused saying that she finally went for a smear after blogging about it and getting support on-line.
Honestly, what is going on? Why all the focus on this when people are dropping from heart disease, other common cancers, strokes, dementia – you hardly hear anything about those problems, nope, it’s all about the cervix.
It is sickening. If the cervix was on the knee, no-one would be interested in it, it’s only because of it’s location are there people queuing up to examine it. It’s all rooted in perversion.
https://www.grace-charity.org.uk/who-we-are
Amy, I once counted about 8 charities for cervical cancer in the UK. That’s practically one charity for 100 deaths, most of them in their 80s. I honestly believe it is because they can make so much money out of it by the endless repeat testing, treatments and checkups. It is a real cash cow for private medicine, so I think private companies are behind a lot of the scaremongering. What is this charity doing at Surrey NHS County Hospital? Why is it covering the exact same ground as Eve Appeal? I think this is private business getting started under the guise of a charity because they can pay no tax if a charity and avoiding NHS restrictions on pointless testing.
As in most things, follow the money.
The charities make tax-free money. Those taking the smears get money. Those making the test kits get money. The labs make money. Those providing (private) follow-on testing, procedures, or treatment make money. They provide material for resident surgeons who have to participate in a number of hysterectomies (and other surgical procedures) to become actual physicians. This makes money for those manufacturing, distributing, or providing chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Then, on the side somebody can humiliate a bunch of “uppity women” who are so empowered as to have these oh-so-important tests, humiliate more passive women. And, some test-takers or procedure-givers have the added advantage as to put their fingers in someone’s cooch. Or, they do it to check boxes, getting a good bit more reimbursement for being “thorough”, all for 5 minutes of a hands-on peep show.
It doesn’t seem to matter to them that they can do a LEEP in about 2 minutes that will ruin somebody’s life. Or, a punch biopsy without anesthesia ripping off part of someone’s genitals, and ruin her sex life for months, years, or forever. The PTSD caused by this has to be a good source of material for psychologists too.
You only have to look at the Pink Ribbon commercial machine to see how vested interests have seized on breast cancer and screening as a winner, for them – if you look at how some of these charities spend their money, it’s telling too, not much on research into better treatments or a cure but on more awareness campaigns, spreading fear and misinformation. Some companies claim to support breast screening or research, a donation with every sale, but when you have a closer look, the donation is tiny – it’s just a way of marketing – using breast cancer and screening to sell their products.
Women have been treated as fair game, those who should have protected us, came to the table with dirty hands so couldn’t really do anything without exposing their own culpable conduct.
How can you possibly say in 2019 that screening is in the woman’s best interest so only that side should be pushed on her – that exaggerations and outright lies are fine if it helps reach a screening target? That any pressure or coercion is acceptable…
The practice of sending a woman a pre-arranged appt is arrogant, manipulative and unethical – it’s a tactic to pressure women into screening or to feel they must call and cancel…and face pressure to make another appt.
I’d say to any woman receiving an appt to throw the letter in the bin, if you hear from them, “thought it was a mistake, I didn’t make an appt for breast screening”…
Elizabeth I agree. I think it’s awful they summon a woman to breast screening without asking her opinion but I have to say I personally felt obliged to cancel my 1st ever summons so it could go to someone who actually wanted it. In the UK I believe if you just ignore it they send another app just to be safe ( or make you feel you have to go)?! I rang to cancel and I have to say I wasn’t put under any pressure or asked any questions. My no I don’t want to reschedule was accepted without comments. I formally opted out immediately as I wasn’t prepared to keep cancelling unwanted appointments. I think since mammon aren’t done in GP surgery there’s less financial gain for our docs so we aren’t pushed so much. Ladies what’s been your experience. ?
I did actually have an interesting discussion about my on screening last year with a brilliant African lady doc at my practice when I went for help with menopausal sweats and flushes. Natural remedies weren’t helping and I made it very clear no HRT. She offered clonidine or antidepressant. …I chose clonidine. Asked why I didn’t want HRT…was it a family risk?…I said no no one agrees if it’s safe or not and I’m not prepared to risk it plus the increased risk of female cancers and I’m not prepared to start screening for them.
Why don’t you screen. She asked and I told her… CC LIFETIME risk so low, woman my history unlikely to have HPV and if my risk changed I’d do a self test plus women my age likely to produce abnormal results due to hormones. Breast cancer well over treatment worries over radiation and squashing delicate tissue. She couldn’t argue with anything I said,
Last year I refused meds for dangerously high BP I got it down to just above normal myself diet and exercise. I sought treatment for chronic insomnia lasting years a few months ago and take a tiny dose of amitryptilune which is helping. BP IS now normal! It could very well have been the increased cortisol levels due to not sleeping days on end raised it in 1st place……
If disabled women want cervical screening, you don’t need hoists, you offer HPV self testing, there’s even self paps available too. A woman in a wheelchair should be able to manage a self test, even if she ends assistance, it will be easier than a speculum exam. (and less likely to cause injury and pain)
Use common sense – instead they refuse to give us options, instead putting women though invasive and often unnecessary testing…and even more undignified with hoists and positioning of legs etc.
https://phescreening.blog.gov.uk/2019/08/15/celebrating-best-practice-in-cervical-screening/
Just posting for you to enjoy the comments…
Ada luvvin IT? !
“Thousands of cervical screening staff losing their jobs” aaaah what a joy to read!
If the comments of the two cytologists don’t prove it’s all about them and never about the best interests (relatively speaking) of the patients, I don’t know what does.
Omg, that is hilarious! And sick. Let me explain:
I am unemployed after four years working in a fossil-fuel-adjacent industry (smoke testing), laid off due to the decline of fossil fuel industries, and have been for nearly a year and a half. I’ve scraped a couple seasonal positions here and there,but have no idea how I’m going to get by.
And at no point have i, for a moment, had bad feelings towards clean energy! As much as it sucks for me and for my former employers,who were great people I liked a whole lot, I can recognize that overall, it is a win for the world. I can find another job, even if it’s hard, but there’s only one planet, and I would never wish to keep a damaging system going that will hurt future generations just so I can have my steady paycheck for the moment.I
I have no sympathy for these cytologists, and I am always nauseated when people suggest we should keep a broken system that damages people do jobs can be spared and no other reason. I had people say that to me about warrantless drug testing too–sure, it’s demeaning and inaccurate and damages lives as well as the trust between people and reduces all innocent citizens to guilty convicted criminals who must perpetually prove an innocence that will never fully be proven…but the jobs that will be lost if we stop! That’s the important thing!
When people start whining about jobs lost, you know they no longer have valid arguments against your side.
Kat, I had trouble sleeping in my late 40s-early 50s, it went on for about 4 years, I’m sure it was hormonal, it was exhausting – a family friend is going through the same thing now, and she’s also, late 40s.
I recently found a natural product that works well, made by Blackmores, their executive sleep formula, looking at reviews it doesn’t work for everyone, but it certainly works for me and my husband.
“The natural ingredients are hops, lemon balm and passionflower which are all traditionally used in Western Herbal medicine for their calming and sedative actions. With regular daily use, Blackmores Executive Sleep Formula™ can also provide relief from disturbed sleep patterns to wake refreshed (without associated drowsiness).”
I only take it a few times a month, but wish I’d known about it in my 40s!
Thank you Elizabeth! I’ll have a look and see if I can find this or the English equivalent x
You’re welcome, hope it works for you too.
This forum is a bit like the village fountain, women gathering and sharing information, I’ve picked up so many tips here.
Yes I’ve had so much support and advice too so a big thank you to everyone here and to Sue too for hosting this brilliant site x
UK ladies if you can stomach it (not sure I can) BBC TV tonight the vomitable Ms Goody talks about the smear she had b4 doing big brother India and jer CC diagnosis and how she worked to increase knowledge of smears and CC. .
I don’t know what it is about Jade Goody but I cannot stand the way that women was forced down our throats when she was alive and even tho she has been dead for years we never stop hearing about her.
I won’t be watching it Kat as I can imagine what they are going to spew at us. (I might watch it tho)
As expected, poor Jade is being used again by the screening police to promote the cause. Jade was a victim during her short life and is still being shamelessly exploited after her death.
There’s kind of a shortage of women who actually suffer and die FROM CC. They have to exploit the ones they have for all they can get to push this oh-so-important test.
Of course our beloved daily fail has run the story already 1.8k comments lol
The YouTuber dramatic Mac , I think she’s from Scotland has just posted a video. My smear test results not what I expected. I used to watch her but I can’t . I’m sure she’s convinced she has cancer. And scaring other woman. I’m starting to feel like a freak for not having paps. It seems like the whole world is brainwashed. I’m in the US. I’m so glad to know this site is heAr I can’t stand it, I feel silenced. Why should I feel like this? I’m so sick of hearing Pap smear talk every time I turn around. Even worse that I’m as woman expected to do this . Sorry got the rant . I just needed to vent. I’m just tired of all this testing being pushed at us.
You’re right Kleigh, it is disgusting. I too am sick of hearing about it every single day. I am sorry for Jade Goody, it was a tragedy for her and her family, but that poor soul passed over 10 years ago, yet they are still dredging up her illness and telling us to get smears. Just this morning on the news, Jo’s Trust yet again saying that there is a documentary on this week about Jade and we should all use it as a reminder to get smears.
It is true that the whole world is brainwashed about it. Only us on this site can see the truth. The nature of the test is vile to me and I find it offensive to be constantly bombarded about getting the test. Men are not subject to this type of harassment about prostate exams or bowel screenings, you hardly hear anything about those tests. I am certain that the smear test thing is all about perversion.
I am also in the US, and I am starting to feel like a freak for not having paps. It took a LONG TIME even to convince my husband that FOR ME paps aren’t a great idea. I’ve got him to the point where he could advocate for me when I had some (expletive) fill-in doctor demanding entrance to my vagina and not taking “NO” for an answer. Even he says, when I was going through continual intrusive thoughts of this clown demanding I take my pants off and spread my legs that I need “therapy”. REALLY? Am I to believe that it’s “normal” to not object when a strange man is demanding to put hands and objects that feature blades in my vagina? What about the little fact that no freakin’ way am I going to allow them to tear pieces off of my cervix without anesthesia? Or allow them to amputate part of my cervix, severing nerves in the process – about 1/3 of which cause serious damage?
People are so convinced that CC is common, and is a real fear that all women have. No, it’s a rare cancer that effects 0.65% of US women in our lifetimes. I’m at almost the peak age for it, and my risk of having it this year is 0.0056% WTF? Hubby accused me of reading “blogs”, because it’s very common. Yeah. I read the CDC data for the year. He saw it, and said, “That’s got to be a mistake. It was the #1 killer of women before paps.” No, The #1 killer of women in 1970 was heart attacks, just like men, just like now. The #1 killer of women in 1900 was tuberculosis, just like men. Oh, the #1 cancer killer! Lung cancer, just like men, with the same risk factors (smoking, asbestos, certain occupations). Then, there’s the “It’s the #1 killer in poor countries where they don’t do paps.” Uhhhh, yeah. In countries, such as much of Africa or SE Asia, where they don’t do paps, they have people dying from all manner of things because there’s a lack of medical care givers or medication, or even vaccines, who is doing all of these autopsies? I was given the goofy answer of “It doesn’t take a medically TRAINED person to autopsy a dead person.” What????
I have gotten to the point of not wanting to stick around when women are talking about their health scare, or medical appointments. If I say anything, I’m a freak. Or I need therapy (see above on feeling “normal” to allow a stranger to penetrate you and damage you). Or that I pose a danger to the community. Or that I really need all of this, because it’s the #1 killer of women.
I have diabetes, so I cannot just avoid doctors like I did for years in the past. Even at that, the diabetes and thyroid disorders are glossed over when the pap crap starts.
Beth those are my thoughts also, and you have articulated them so succinctly. The myth that cervical cancer was and still is a major threat to women’s health is so pervasive, even in the medical community. I can no longer avoid doctors either as I’m on high blood pressure meds and my doctor was surprised when I cited the .065 risk factor to him once when he started in about pap smears. And you’re absolutely right, even though we are well informed intelligent women, the pressure from both the medical community and our peers is enough to make us feel like an oddity or freak.
Mine too, was visibly taken aback when I cited the 0.65% LIFETIME RISK of CC. Still, pushed HARD for me to take my panties off so he could do a pap test “today”. There are a lot of things much more likely to cause my death or poor health.
I just read _Everything Below the Waist: why health care needs a feminist revolution_ by Jennifer Block. Copyright 2019 St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 9781250110060 The book goes several directions, including the massive waste in US healthcare, including overcharging, excessive salaries, unneeded services, overuse/overdiagnosis/overtreatment problem that collectively costs the US $750 BILLION per year. I was taken aback by this – this is the entire budget for the US Iraq war/occupation over its 8 years. You can read the article at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/how-the-us-health-care-system-wastes-750-billion-annually/262106/ or a number of other places. A bit over 1/4 of that is overuse/overtreatment, and gynecology is not the only area it’s done in, but it’s a significant portion.
Meanwhile, the book points out, that female patients’ actual complaints are not taken seriously in deference to this pap smear stuff and its follow-ons. “I’ve got chest pains!” “I’m bleeding severely from injury!” is met with questions about pap. WTF?
I think they’ve got the common person believing you can examine EVERYTHING inside a woman by looking into her vagina. If not that, by looking inside someone’s rectum with a colonscopy, but that’s another issue.
There are reasons they’ve got this obsession with putting women on a conveyor belt leading to lots of follow-on care (77% of 60 y/o women have had “something done to her cervix”), and 1/3 of 60 y/o women have had a hysterectomy – going up to 1/2 of 70 y/o women. Even the true believers don’t claim that CC was ever THAT high prevalency.
There are a few reasons, including that resident gyns or resident surgeons need to participate in a particular number of hysterectomies. Well-insured women who have completed having their children are providing material! I do not consider myself “material”. While I might consider donating my body to science, I want to do it AFTER my death. I also found that gyns have a shorter residency that focuses far less on actual surgery than other surgeons.
Meanwhile, all of this removes the gonads, the sexual organs, cuts into and removes part of the clitoris (a human rights violation). What MAN would allow part of his penis to be torn off without anesthesia, having his penis shortened, removal of his testicles and prostate, and would BELIEVE it when a doctor proposing this radical event told him, “You’ll feel better than ever!”????
I think some
Men have been brainwashed washed too.
Some men would believe it because so many people, men and women, blindly trust doctors and think they’re infallible. But this type of medical abuse of men just isn’t going to happen because their right to informed consent and bodily autonomy is respected by the medical profession whereas women’s isn’t.
Hear in the US they are advertising for men to get Ed meads online so they “don’t have to have any embarrassing doctors visits.” Oh but woman are supposed to be “used to” doctors. I’m so annoyed by this.
Some men are bullied or coerced into certain types of care. It happened once, to about the same degree that my last medical appointment had me bullied into a pap (unsuccessfully). In his own case, his VA doctor came out into the waiting room screaming “You’re going to die!”, after he got up and walked out, if he didn’t take a cholesterol med – with a LDL cholesterol level of 128. I knew that 130 is the bottom for “high cholesterol”; it didn’t seem right. He filed a complaint, which was investigated. It seems this doc was taking money from a drug company to do some clinical trial “off the books”. The VA does plenty of clinical trials, but always with informed consent. This rogue trial was without informed consent, was not approved by anyone, and the doctor was lining his own pocket – a Federal offense. Not to mention the violation of HIPPA and other privacy regulations.
There was also a case a few years back in our daily fail of a man who did his research and declined further investigation into his supposed prostate issues after reading of the harms and inaccuracies in the test. Hospital and GP bombarded him with persuasive calls even after he told them he wasn’t interested. He said it really upset him. Welcome to a woman’s world..
It seems that the medical industry worldwide is using/abusing the whole thing in order to assert their dominance over people rather than to actually work on improving their health in any way.