353 comments

1. http://www.plosmedicine.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=78773

   It annoys me that so many refuse to let go of population pap testing. This article talks about cervical screening in older women. (the risk of cc with and without pap testing)
   The answer is so simple, but so many refuse to let go of the precious pap test. Why?

   It’s plain cruel to put women through pap testing when something better is available, After menopause this test can be *VERY painful, cause bleeding and soreness (that lasts for days) and it can be hard to get a decent sample so re-testing may be necessary. Some women are given pessaries to use for a week or so before testing. Testing can be so difficult it’s abandoned leaving the woman to fear “something” might have been missed. ALL of this is completely unnecessary.

   Almost all of these women are HPV-…and cannot benefit from pap testing, they could test themselves for HPV, but the obvious is something so many don’t want to see, they’d prefer to keep putting women through unnecessary pap testing, biopsies etc.
   I left a comment on the above article.
   *Younger women can also, find the test painful, difficult etc.

2. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/absolutely-maybe/2014/03/23/the-disease-prevention-illusion-a-tragedy-in-five-parts/

   Great article in the Scientific American, once so rare, now these articles are coming thick and fast, but sadly, often in places that only reach a fairly small number of non-medical women, still, we’re starting to see articles in major newspapers on the real value of breast screening. Do the risks outweigh the benefits? Yes, IMO…
   Sadly, there is still virtually no real information available on cervical screening, it takes some hunting even if you have access to medical journals.

3. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1401875?query=TOC#t=article
   “Abolishing Mammography Screening Programs? A View from the Swiss Medical Board”
   Nikola Biller-Andorno, M.D., Ph.D., and Peter Jüni, M.D.
   April 16, 2014
   Excellent article on breast screening. Vested interests must be concerned that article after article keep appearing, hopefully, more women will see their real concern is not about breast cancer, but protecting huge profits. (billions)

4. Click to access summaryBHMK.pdf

   An interesting summary of the position in The Netherlands re cervical screening. (by the Health Council) A trial is being carried out to consider whether it may be better to send all women HPV self-test kits.
   There is stuff in here I don’t like, like providing women with pre-arranged appointments for HPV testing, (the invasive type) that’s a coercive tactic that is inappropriate and only seems to be used against women.
   I wanted to post a few passages, but the system won’t let me. Anyway, interesting reading.

5. For those with access to the BMJ:
   “Long term duration of protective effect for HPV negative women: follow-up of primary HPV screening randomised controlled trial”
   BMJ 2014; 348 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g130 (Published 16 January 2014)
   Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g130
   Basically, “the cumulative incidence of CIN2+ was the same for HPV screening and for cytology, implying that the increased sensitivity of HPV screening for CIN2+ reflects earlier detection rather than overdiagnosis”

6. http://www.womens-health.org.nz/informed-consent-2.html
   Any NZ women reading this forum?
   Here is an interesting article for you…you might mention it the next time your GP pressures you, you get a phone call or home visit about your “overdue” pap test. I know this happens in NZ thanks to a few NZ posters at BlogCritics and other sites.
   I note this article is now quite old…it just confirms in my mind that informed consent in women’s cancer screening is largely academic and ignored in practice.

7. Dr Gilbert Welch from Dartmouth has produced 4 short presentations on cancer screening.
   1. Benefits and harms
   2. False Positives
   3. Over-diagnosis
   4. RCT and over-diagnosis
   (about 15 minutes each)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owNwZS-nLGc

8. Dr Margaret McCartney’s lecture at Cardiff University, “Sexed up medicine is bad for your health”….you can say that again!
9. I was reading an article about the over-diagnosis of thyroid cancer, this is mainly in the States where the examine-everything exam includes an exam of the neck.

   “Despite the increase, thyroid cancer is relatively uncommon; more than 60,000 cases were diagnosed nationwide last year, according to the American Cancer Society. Risk factors for thyroid cancer include diets low in iodine — rare in the United States — and radiation exposure. Women are more commonly diagnosed than men”
   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/thyroid-cancer-rises_n_4826219.html

   Radiation…couldn’t help but wonder about mammograms, many American women start having mammograms in their 30s and have them annually. I can imagine these women getting a breast cancer as a result of the radiation, and you have to wonder what other things might be triggered, perhaps, thyroid cancer? I shudder whenever I read a post from an American woman up to mammogram no. 15 or 20…often a false positive, excess biopsy or over-treatment makes women even more vigilant with screening.

10. UK women, I was just chatting to a woman on a UK health site, she’s been going through hell trying to have a pap test, the option of a GA has now been raised and she’s been referred to a gyn.
    I cannot imagine anyone suggesting a GA just to take a pap test, cc is rare, the risks of the GA would pose a greater threat/risk…and it’s culpable IMO, without first offering her HPV self-testing, she’s probably HPV- and not even at risk, cannot benefit from a pap test.

    Anyway, she’s found a HPV self-test kit online, it sounds good, the biggest advantage is you can test anonymously, you don’t have to provide your doctor’s details or get the device through her/him.
    Many self-testing kits are used to keep track of women, to get them into the surgery to be pressured into pap testing, here a HPV+ woman would probably be pushed into a colposcopy and biopsy, when she should simply be offered a 5 yearly pap test. (until she clears the virus)

    The Delphi Screener has a distributor here now, but you have to access the Screener through your GP. That makes me nervous when our GPs are paid to sell pap tests (target payments) and when our program is so excessive, manipulative and disrespectful of women’s rights and bodies. I know some women will still choose to test in Singapore or elsewhere or find an anonymous way to test.
    https://letsgetchecked.com/tests/HPV/

11. Someone very kindly provided me with a link to a new DVD that’s been released on breast screening, it features some of the members of my Medical Hall of Fame, Professor Michael Baum and Peter Gotzsche from the Nordic Cochrane Institute. It’s available online, you can download it or buy it, it’s inexpensive and may be the best $6.50 you’ve ever spent…you can also, listen to the free introduction on YouTube.

    http://thepromisefilm.net/

    • Thank you so much for sharing that Elizabeth. My mother is being continuously hassled about going in for a mammogram and each time she tells them no. She’s considering going in for one just because they keep going on about it. The last time she had one, she ended up getting a false positive which nearly resulted in an unnecessary biopsy and could have led to harmful, unnecessary treatments. I’ll try showing this to her to see if that helps. I’m going suggest requesting thermography as an alternative, as that may cause them to back off since she is asymptomatic. I actually cried a little bit after I heard about her being hassled that way. People do unnecessary things to PLEASE THEIR DOCTORS AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES. It has nothing to do with whether or not someone actually thinks they should do something or wants to, they do these things to fill the hand grabbing for money because they won’t be left alone until they comply. It’s disgusting and now it’s personal because the woman who means the most to me is being unnecessarily hassled and potentially harmed.

      • I wonder if she tried being a bit”informal” about it, things would shift? What I mean is that if she said in an irreverant tone “You guys are always harrassing me about that. Take the hint already! If I want one I’ll tell you!” Or something to that effect.

        What are they going to do? Get mouthy & insulting? Probably, but then she can just say to watch their mouth! I’ll be being treated “that way” would throw them off their game. Your mother saying these things might have a reinforcing effect on your mother- kind of like when the drill instructors go “SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!” or convicts cursing at their enemies in a fight. I think if she didn’t have an “extra” attitude with them (whatever it would be called when it’s more than normal), it would be easier to shrug off their frowns & “you’re an idiot” attitude.

        Don’t do shit to make them happy. Instead, make them miserable! That should be the goal when dealing with them. Not everyone. Not people, in general. THEM, specifically. As it is, they shouldn’t be purveying things that are untrue or unsafe in the first place- much less doggedly pursuing someone on it.

      • Alex – I’m going to encourage her as much as possible to stand her ground on this one. I’m sure she will as she’s a very strong person. I do understand her annoyance, and why many women are tempted to give in. After discussing it, I don’t think she will give in to their demands. She was just aggravated that they wouldn’t accept “no” for an answer and leave her alone. Anyway, I’m going to print off some information from a reputable source to give her so she can use that when they try to harass her into screening again. I’m sure that will help immensely.

      • The way doctors are so agresive to get woman to have mamos and paps tells me its more about money, power and liability. like they have somthing to hide from woman as were no supose to have a choice. it bothers me. they never explan to woman false positves or even what a pap involves . its bc were not even supose to have a choice according to the meadical establishment.

12. Thank you so much for all your posts and information here, Elizabeth, and also to Sue for making this website a haven for women who have suffered so much at the hands of the screening zealots.
    Many women owe so much to you for exposing the fraud in women’s health care. Please keep it coming. This battle must be won.

13. You’re welcome Ada, and thank you for your posts too and great references.

    A few interesting things in the news today, a urine test for HPV, it’s also, featured in the newspapers. I imagine it’s a long way off, especially for Australian and American women.
    Vested interests will definitely have “concerns” about anything that gives women more control and means less income for them.
    http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5542?etoc=
    http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/urine-test-may-replace-pap-smear-to-test-for-cervical-cancer/story-fneuz9ev-1227060802009

    Also, about 20% of women with the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene will opt to have their breasts removed, (like Angelina Jolie) now they’re doing a small human trial on a drug in the hope it will turn off these genes.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/drug-trial-raises-hope-for-brca-carriers/story-fn3dxiwe-1227061469451
    “MELBOURNE researchers are studying if a medication used for osteoporosis can switch off the cancer-causing cells in those with a BRCA gene mutation.”
    “Researchers from The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) will test a drug called denosumab on 30 women with the BRCA gene fault”
    It sounds like there is still a long way to go before it’s an option for high risk women.

14. I have learned so much from this website, and I am now researching further and further into the limitations of the screening programmes. I feel that change is afoot. It is too quiet. We’re not getting so many of the pathetic stories anymore to shore up the screening figures. I have been reading about the Dutch programme. They will switch to HPV primary testing and will offer self testing from January 2016. This is a country only 70 miles away from us here in the UK. It’s got to get women here asking why they’re not getting this choice too. They are keeping all this news a secret in the UK. They don’t want women thinking that they’ll hang on for another year, because a better test may come along next year.
    A relation of mine has recently got her first invitation for a mammogram, and was astonished that the wording seemed to imply that she had a choice whether or not to take up her appointment. It just goes to show how they’ve been duping women all these years. I imparted my views in no uncertain terms.

15. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2014/201/5/information-provision-cervical-screening-australia

    Brace yourselves, an article in the MJA on the possible lack of informed consent in cervical screening in Australia….NO, it can’t be true!
    An article about 40 years too late, but nice to see, better late than never.

    Of course, the entire set-up dismisses informed consent and often, consent itself, everyone in medicine knows that (and a few women!) perhaps, some are feeling a bit uncomfortable or unsafe with more informed women posting and the screening rates continuing to fall. In fact, we are so far away from informed consent, I view as program as medical abuse. Women IMO, are deliberately misled and pressured into not only screening, but over-screening, by doctors with an undisclosed potential conflict of interest. Women have been used and abused by the medical profession and other vested interests.

    No one has ever cared about informed consent (or even consent itself) for women…a woman has only to decline pap testing and see what happens, few GPs will simply accept that and move on to the reason for your visit. Women are expected to submit to medical orders, end of story, hand over your body when directed to do so…and no complaints about pain, risk or embarrassment thanks, that just means there is something wrong with you!

    • http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/28/women-informed-consent-and-cervical-screening
      Just to compare, a similar article appeared in the BMJ in 2000, 14 years ago. This excellent response was posted by Andrew Rouse, one of my all time favourite responses. Of course, the comment was safely locked behind a pay wall, few women saw it.

      • Elizabeth, this is also one of my favourites, and I have just recently posted it to someone who’s been attacking me recently on the Guardian website. Last weekend they ran a story about womb cancer, which is what I have just got over:
        http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/21/womb-cancer-fourth-most-common-women

        I was incensed to read in the comments that some women are advocating for more screening, when it is one of those cancers which has very early visible symptoms, but few people, including doctors seem to be able to recognise them, and it is this delay in diagnosis, which is costing women their lives, not a lack of screening. So many people still in the dark that screening is for no sign of disease, diagnosis is for symptoms.

    • I know it is galling to think that this information didn’t come out 40 years ago, but I’m optimistic that with the Netherlands rolling out their HPV test (with Delphi screener self-sampling on 1/1/2016, this has got the UK screening programme very worried. The Netherlands is only 70 miles away from where I’m sitting now, and if all the Dutch female population are going to be given a self-screening option in 2016, it has got to have an impact on neighbouring countries. I can see Delphi screeners coming to an Ebay website near you soon!

      I also think that with the historical links between the UK, Oz, NZ and Canada, none of these countries can do something which is too different from the other, without the populations finding out. I think all the Anglophone countries are looking very much at what the other is doing, and they are desperately trying to come up with a standardised screening model across the developed world in the post-HPV age, without some countries breaking the ranks of social control over women, and still protecting their own skins. If the HPV test can be done by women themselves, then freeing women from regular medical appointments will do much to increase their independency from medical propaganda.

16. The document which Andrew Rouse refers to has now been superseded by this one:
    http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/consent_guidance_responsibility_for_seeking_a_patients_consent.asp

17. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399105001321
    We see articles on informed consent now and then, locked away in medical journals, but these programs and doctors (and others) have no respect for informed consent. I’d say no respect, it’s rare to even hear someone acknowledge screening is a choice, and even then it’s often followed, “but we strongly suggest all women have 2 yearly pap testing etc.”
    It appears to be an academic exercise, also, incentive payments, scare campaigns, misinformation are all about maximum coverage, not informed consent. You can hardly say you respect the legal rights of women when you allow doctors to use coercion, to mislead women “you need one if you’re on the Pill”, collect target payments (without mentioning these payments to women) etc.
    Women are TOLD to screen and scolded and judged if they don’t, that’s not informed consent.

    • Or as one screening spokesman said fairly recently, yes, we want women to make an informed decision to screen. Sorry, fail.

    • I bet that mention of incentive payments would definitely get women to thinking more critically about things. It’s not like they’re typically given full disclosure about the risks, inaccuracies, and alternatives to think about. There’s also the point that things are typically phrased as an order, not an option.

18. Interesting article on HPV & HPV vaccination

    “It can be claimed that HPV infection is a necessary precursor to most cervical cancers but if most HPV infections do not progress to cervical cancer then a vaccine against two strains of many high-risk HPV subtypes will not be beneficial to the majority of women.
    HPV vaccines have been promoted to women as a cervical cancer vaccine without any definitive
    evidence they will prevent cervical cancer. In addition, no long-term systematic surveillance has been implemented to establish the safety of the vaccine over the 5 years it has been used. It is clear that government policy decisions and the marketing of vaccines have not been based on the best available scientific evidence. This is detrimental to the health of the population and needs to be addressed in order to maintain trust in the institutions that are supposed to protect public health.”
    http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1921&context=lhapapers

    • Couldn’t these vaccines CAUSE the cancer? It introduces this situation to the body & there’s all kinds of nuances to vaccines that make them work other than advertised. A lot of people think that “this is the dead virus & the body learns to kill it,” but sometimes it’s the WEAKENED virus (and sometimes the next shot reinvigorates that virus), sometimes there’s something else in it that causes problems, sometimes there’s a problem because of the sequencing of the shots- there’s a lot of “fine print.”

      On a nearly constant level, things don’t work as advertised with medicine. There’s nearly always a contradiction between description & situation. I notice that politically, too- but those things don’t ever mingle together (insert sarcastic tone for the end of it).

    • Few studies are published on the transmission of HPV and if reinfection or reactivation of a particular strain can reoccur. I would really like to know if for example a women was infected with HPV strain 18 and it developed into CIN II. After a few years her body cleared the CIN and she had normal paps for years after. What would her HPV test for strain 18 be? Negative right? Then if she ever got an abnormal pap again would it be cause by strain 18 again? Does clearing an infection result in lifetime immunity of that particular strain? Seems to me that one should know before introducing a vaccine.

      I already know that most vaccines do not work. I got all the childhood vaccines and still got measles as a teenager. The flu vaccine is a farce. It only is for three or four “favourite” strains per year yet healthcare workers are being told to get vaccinated or face consequences since they could infect their patients. The vaccine is only effective against three or four strains when there are hundreds. Plus the vaccine is only effective for 6-12 months. So just infect the patients with whatever flu you have at the time. Natural immunity from getting a flu strain really should last a lifetime, not 6 months or a year.

19. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1409003
    Interesting article on mammography and the difficulty of conveying risk/benefit to women.
    Interesting these articles never mention the fact an enormous amount of time, money and effort has gone into misleading women over decades. You can hardly blame women for preferring to screen or over-screen, even when they receive information on over-diagnosis, risk of screening exceeds any benefit etc. Many women now feel they should be doing “something” or will regret not having mammograms if they’re later diagnosed with breast cancer. Some say you can’t put your head in the sand etc. screening is now viewed in an emotional way.
    After decades of propaganda, the system can’t now complain it’s difficult getting actual benefit and real risk across to women. Many women are now scared to death and will always side with screening, almost a knee jerk reaction.
    Just as women who have “treatment” for dysplasia often believe they’re survivors, so do women who have false positive mammograms, biopsies etc.
    So don’t blame women for this almighty mess. The decision to focus on coverage at all costs, deny women real information and respect informed consent has landed us in this “we must do something” mind set. Some American women want to have annual or 6 monthly mammograms and start before age 40, that feels me with dread….gulp, I sense risk, and lots of it.

    • Hi Elizabeth. You have knowledge about this topic and have already provided great information and references on it. I’ve been trying to think of a way to put together a post on breast cancer screening but I’m not the best candidate for this area of info. Any advice about how to put a post together would be so welcome 🙂

20. Sue, if you asked me about cervical screening, that means various articles, charts, statistics etc. (many locked behind pay walls and from various countries) but breast screening is a LOT easier thanks to the summary put together by the NCI. Rather than going from source to source it’s all there in their summary for easy reading. It’s on their website and it’s the best source I’ve found, and they don’t feel the need to tiptoe around these programs.

    “It therefore no longer seems beneficial to attend for breast cancer screening. In fact, by avoiding going to screening, a woman will lower her risk of getting a breast cancer diagnosis. However, despite this, some women might still wish to go to screening.”

    I’d send every woman a copy of the summary, but that will never happen, it threatens the program so instead when they’re forced to, they’ll painfully try to re-draft the screening brochures, they’ve had a couple of unsuccessful attempts in the UK.
    The fact is they CAN’T tell women the truth – they’re caught in no man’s land, they can’t tell the truth, but have to pretend to better inform women.
    The first consideration will always be protecting the very expensive program, never wanting to put women “off” screening. This conflict means there is virtually no reliable information provided to women by these programs.
    The Govt, screening authority, cancer charities, vested interests and women’s groups should never be relied upon for real and balanced information, you’ll get propaganda, a sales pitch or a “version” of the evidence always favouring screening. It might be using relative rather than absolute risk, whatever “sounds” better or “there is a difference of opinion” (because they refuse to accept the evidence, that mounts ever higher, that the risk with screening exceeds any benefit) winding back the risk of over-diagnosis, plumping up “lives saved” numbers (including those over-diagnosed and never at risk of dying from their “breast cancer”) “we don’t know which cancers are life-threatening at the moment so have to treat everyone just in case” etc.

    They KNOW a brochure that properly informs women means the target will never be reached and the program will stumble and fall after a few years. (with all that means…)
    I’ve heard with missed targets year after year there has been some discussion about offering GPs financial incentives to get women screened, a bit like cervical screening. They got away with it with pap testing, so why not breast screening? Perhaps, they might also, do more scare campaigns and one-sided presentations in office situations etc. When billions is made worldwide from breast screening, they’ll try everything to protect this lucrative business. IMO, they’ll pretend to care about informed consent and then work away at getting as many women screened as possible.

    Once women have read the NCI summary, they might like to read about the effect of three decades of breast screening. (by Dr Gilbert Welch and Archie Bleyer)

    “Despite substantial increases in the number of cases of early-stage breast cancer detected, screening mammography has only marginally reduced the rate at which women present with advanced cancer. Although it is not certain which women have been affected, the imbalance suggests that there is substantial overdiagnosis, accounting for nearly a third of all newly diagnosed breast cancers, and that screening is having, at best, only a small effect on the rate of death from breast cancer.”
    (the NCI says about 50% of screen detected breast cancers are over-diagnosed)
    Also from the article by Welch and Bleyer:
    “Regardless of the approach used, our estimate of overdiagnosed cancers attributable to mammography over the past 30 years involved more than 1 million women.”

    Optional extras: listen to Professor Baum’s lecture on You Tube and/or buy the DVD, “The Promise”. There is a lot of information in medical journals, but it’s all there in the NCI summary…easy.
    Once you’ve finished your homework, you can make an informed decision about breast screening.

    http://www.cochrane.dk/screening/index-en.htm
    http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809
    http://thepromisefilm.net/
    • Thank you so much for this Elizabeth. I appreciate your advice on where to access the best, most accurate information on this topic and for sharing your knowledge. In the next while I will open a post on the home page devoted to this topic. You are spot on about finding references related to cervical cancer screening. Even with access to all the articles, there isn’t much to choose from. The post on “top five reasons for opting out of pap tests” was frustrating to put together because of the slim pickings – the ‘scientific’ research is just not there. As you’ve said, why would they want to spend money on research that will reveal how harmful the program has been, and continues to be? There was one excellent research article related to HPV contaminated vaginal specula, but it was from the 1980s, and it wasn’t surprising that there were no further studies done. Imagine the outrage if that information got out to the general public.

      Breast cancer screening is different because there are more champions, and more research now – but still a confusing maze of information to sort through. Another reason I appreciate your knowledge here, you’ve made it easy to make a beeline to the best of the best.

21. Hi Sue, regarding your above comment that there was only 1 research article about HPV contaminated specula and no further research done. It sounds to me that that article confirmed without a doubt, that the old metal ones did indeed spread the virus, so that is why no further research was done, and the metal ones have since been replaced by disposable plastic ones. In the UK now, the transparent plastic disposable ones are used and these are sealed up and only broken open just before use. Proof, if ever there was, that the virus was being spread by unclean specula.

22. You might recall I attended the Evidence Live Conference in March 2013 (Oxford, UK)
    I must have looked like a giddy middle-aged fan in that company, my medical heroes. (although Prof Baum was missing)
    This year it was held at Dartmouth in the US, you can listen to some of the speakers on this site.
    http://www.preventingoverdiagnosis.net/?page_id=855
    Dr Iona Heath, ex President of the UK College of GPs, her close to parting statement is spot-on, “I just wish they’d leave well people alone”….so do I.

23. Sue
    Add this to your breast screening homework list: the speech made by Peter Gotzsche, head of the NCI, at the Evidence Live Conference in Oxford in 2013.

    I was lucky enough to be present for this speech, music to my ears!

24. Sorry Sue, I posted the wrong link.
    Mind you all of the lectures are informative and worrying….thank goodness, we know what’s going on and don’t form part of the trusting and compliant herd.

25. Sue, sorry, I see what’s happening, if you scroll down Playlist, you’ll find the lecture I’m talking about with lots of extras.

    • Awesome, thanks Elizabeth. I won’t be able to get to it for a while, so if you think of more references in the meantime please pass them on (not that you haven’t already provided enough). I do like Peter Gotzsche, yes music to the ears!

    • Is this the Peter Gotzsche video you were referring to?
26. Sue, I’ve been having a problem with hitting the Like icon & it goes up, but then it goes right back down again. Also, I think one of my comments didn’t load (that or got removed, but I figure you’d have told me if I offended). Just thought I’d let you know.

    • Hi Alex, thanks for letting me know. There was an issue with spam a few days ago, when comments were being held by WP for moderation that were not spam and shouldn’t have been held. This site gets hundreds of spam comments every week, but WP has a way to hold them back from the site so maybe your comment got lost in the spam queue. I would not purposely hold back any of your comments. The ‘like’ buttons have been glitchy for me too, I’m not sure what can be done about it though as they are from Polldaddy and not a WP feature. Thanks again Alex, I think the spam issue has been sorted out and it should be smooth sailing now but please let me know if there are issues with comments.

      • Okay, thanks. I just figured maybe I was being offensive (but I figured what I had said wasn’t really above anything else I’d said). I don’t exactly remember what it was, it had something to do with all the “Anglo” countries acting alike when it comes to this sort of thing (being medically dictatorial, I mean- with special emphasis on general pervyness). It seems the German-esque countries do, too (Germany, itself- but also sometimes the Scandanavian & Baltic countries). Don’t know what the deal is with that.

27. A couple of articles here from the Lancet in 1986 about catching the HPV virus from unclean specula. Only sections of these articles have been typed.

    Viruses, specula, and cervical cancer, The Lancet April 5, 1986, D. C. G. Skegg & C. Paul
    In New Zealand, as in other countries, we have been concerned about the rising incidence of cervical cancer. … Recently we heard that one large clinic was reusing plastic disposable vaginal specula after cleaning in tap water and immersion in “Savlon”. This might not kill papillomaviruses. GPs tell us that their practices for disinfecting specula vary widely, and some doctors were not fully aware of the risk of transmitting viral infections in this way. … Most practitioners do not have the facilities for sterilising instruments that are usual in hospitals.

    Risk of transmission of HPV by vaginal specula, The Lancet October 4, 1986, McCance, Campion, Baram, Singer.
    In response to Skegg and Paul’s warning, we investigated the risk of iatrogenic transmission of HPV via specula inserted into the vaginal vault of women with subclinical HPV infection. We investigated the possibility that HPV could be detected in cells adhering to specula after colposcopic examination of women with pre-malignant disease of the cervix (CIN grades 1-3), associated with HPV infection. Many of these women also have HPV infection in other areas of the lower genital tract. The specula, after colposcopic examination and removal from the vaginal vault, were rinsed briefly in an aqueous solution of chlorhexidine to remove excess mucus and then washed thoroughly in phosphate buffered saline to remove adherent cells which were collected in a clean sterile container. … 29 specula from different women were examined and HPV16 DNA sequences were detected in 4 cases with 3 other equivocal results. This HPV type is associated with most of premalignant and malignant disease of the cervix.
    To confirm these findings cells from a further 16 specula were examined by Southern Blotting. Total DNA was extracted from the restriction enzyme Pst1. HPV16 DNA sequences were detected in 1 instance: 5-20 copies per cell were detected. This small study shows that HPV infected cells can be found on instruments inserted into the vagina of women with HPV infection, and if these instruments are not cleaned and sterilised properly they will be a potential source of infection for subsequent patients.

    • I’m sat here alone but still said, “Ugh!” out loud after this sentence: “reusing plastic disposable vaginal specula after cleaning in tap water and immersion in “Savlon”. Who in their right mind thinks that’s sterilising them? I thought the plastic ones were disposable as well.

      On a related note, a dentist in the UK has been suspended after it was revealed he didn’t wash his hands, change gloves, or sterilise equipment between patients. Over 20,000 patients of his have been advised to have blood tests.

      • Yes I read about the dentist too. This article is freely available online, though a little old, from 2000 but it makes you wonder how much has changed…
        http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEcQFjAD&url=http://medidex.com/medical-devices/99-issues-relating-to-disposable-and-reusable-vaginal-specula.html&ei=JL5nVLjfBfaMsQS9o4GgDA&usg=AFQjCNFPlGrG3T-xYUN3jRYbayIpjobHnA&bvm=bv.79142246,d.cWc…

        If a woman did get HPV from a dirty speculum, she would find it almost impossible to prove it had come from her surgery unless many other women had got the same, and the surgery started to report an exceptionally large number of case

    • Wait, I thought they didn’t discover this HPV thing until recently?

28. Please be informed that I had previously posted up several articles about this topic of sterilizing or high level disinfection of instruments used for colposcopy. One Canadian hospital even admitted that they were not processing equipment properly and patients were at risk of contracting HIV, hepatitis etc although they did not mention HPV contamination.

    Even reviewing standard practices of colposcopy, it seemed to suggest that equipment was only sterilized by steam autoclaving once per day. Particularly the instruments used for cervical biopsy (cutting into flesh) were reused all day after high level chemical disinfection. The biopsy punch costs several hundred dollars each and they might only have a few of them. Steam autoclaving reduces sharpness of surgical instruments. Are you horrified yet? Other types of surgeries have higher standards and even dental practices. However because whatever instruments (colposcopy, colonoscopy) is going into the body that is covered by a mucus membrane is not considered as important is what is cutting into the tissue. Sorry did I mention that biopsies might happen during these procedures and there is cutting and micro-abrasions formed? Also isn’t that how HPV infects through micro-abrasions caused by sexual activity? Why is all the reusable equipment going into our mouths at the dentist sterilized (not those xray cards, gloves, resins)? I really doubt that those private colonoscopy clinics are really cleaning properly and chemically “sterilizing” their reusable scopes the full time needed with their high volume of procedures per day. At all they need to make money. Any healthy person infected with HPV from contaminated equipment will take years to develop cancer. Who would ever know?

    How many times do I have to repeat asking this?

    Typing the HPV strains every time a colposcopy or pap is done might actually give someone a clue but it is not happening. No study ever published?

29. “The TGA has received proposals for several oral contraceptives to be re-scheduled as pharmacist only.
    Among the proposals, which have drawn condemnation from the AMA, are to move oestradiol, levonorgestrel and dropsirenone to Schedule 3.”

    The AMA want the Pill to remain on script and we all know why…

    “It will lead to fragmentation of care and a lack of continuity of care, he says.
    “You will end up with the patient never coming to see the doctor and [missing out on] mammograms, breast self-examination, Pap smears, blood pressure checks. All those things related to lifestyle won’t be checked.”
    (from the 6 Minutes site, sadly, I can’t link the article, it’s a site for doctors only, not sure how I got access)

    Of course, we don’t hear this argument about things that might force men into the consult room.

    Requirements for the Pill: medical history and a blood pressure, this could be handled by a pharmacist or by the woman herself. No privacy in the pharmacy is another argument used by the AMA, I’m sure pharmacists would sort out that issue if this opportunity presents itself. I think we need to do more with our highly trained pharmacists. The AMA seem to view them as a threat, when they should be working with them to achieve the best outcome for women. (all of us for that matter) No, it’s a turf war as far as they’re concerned, they’re not doctors!

    Basically, they’ve always used the Pill to force women into cancer screening and pure excess, (routine breast and pelvic exams) and they want that to continue, so they must stay in control of the profitable herd.
    Breast self-examination has been out for ages, yet they throw that in as well.
    They are so transparent, this has nothing to do with health and everything to do with the medical profession and others wanting to control women, maintain market share and maximize profits.

    I get the feeling more are waking up the AMA couldn’t care less about women, IMO, they have given women bad medical advice for years, urging them into early pap testing and serious over-screening and IMO, they’ve never respected consent/informed consent for women. When it comes to the risks of screening etc. the AMA is silent.

    • Well, doctors seeing the pharmacists as a threat isn’t really all that hard of a leap to make- it’s someone OTHER than them handling things, more & more of their job can be done by false labeling, and ultimately they wouldn’t be imposing these kinds of things on people.

      I don’t think things like this are really about money, or at least not entirely. I think it’s got a lot to do with malice- whether that’s pervyness, causing problems in itself, lying in itself, general dictatorial conduct, whatever. It seems to me that they are looking to INFLICT things on people, whatever the dynamics happen to be.

30. OMG, read this:
    “I guess the “Private Consulting” area could easily accommodate the pharmacist doing a quick PAP test, just shove the pill bottles and potions aside, and hop up on the table. While your up there just unbutton the blouse and we’ll do a breast check. It is my experience that many women go to great lengths to avoid a PAP test, like going to bulk billing clinics where doctors being rushed for time due to patient number pressure easily circumvents the test. My practice is to insist on the PAP test when due or no pill prescription, or proof of result from another practice.”

    I’m about to email this comment to the Medical Board, this is one of the most concerning emails I’ve read in some time. It is also, hugely disrespectful of women, it says a lot about the attitude at work here. He appears to be a GP in a major country town.

31. I haven’t seen this article amongst the references and education section, and it is one of the very few that criticises the pressure and bullying that British women have been put under due to the payment targets British GP’s have to meet.

    Reaching targets in the National cervical screening programme: are current practices unethical?
    Peggy Foster & C. Mary Anderson, Jnl of Medical Ethics, 1998, 24, pp151-7.
    It seems to be freely available online.

    Click to access jmedeth00314-0008.pdf

32. Interesting article on the effect of unbalanced information in the German HPV vaccination brochure.
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X13017696

    I think unbalanced (it could also, be called biased, incorrect or misleading) information is the norm in women’s healthcare, it amazes me that “stories” are provided to women, men get the evidence and a choice. (that’s certainly the case with prostate screening)
    It’s a scandal when this testing carries risk, even serious risk.

    “German HPV vaccination leaflets do not provided balanced information.
    Unbalanced reporting reduced people’s understanding of the HPV vaccination.
    By contrast, balanced reporting was found to increase their understanding.
    The differences in reporting did not affect people’s actual HPV vaccination uptake.
    However, only balanced reporting induced an intention that reliably predicted the vaccination decision.”

33. rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/66/3/301.full
    This is an excellent book review of Professor Linda Bryder’s book on the National Women’s Hospital incident: Women’s bodies and medical science: an inquiry into cervical cancer.
    It shows how irrationality took over to ruin a centre of excellence devoted to sparing women mutilating surgery and widespread screening. So depressing to read how misguided and blinded women have become to screening.

34. This 2004 article on “Target Tyranny” pervading the UK National Health Service is freely available on the internet. Now that British men are finding themselves included in the targets of zealot screening doctors, some of them are starting to speak out about it.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079623/

35. http://www.informedmedicaldecisions.org/tag/mammography/

    This group are based in Boston, they have their work ahead of them with many American women still facing medical coercion to force them into screening. (holding the Pill and other meds or sacking you as a patient) There is certainly more talk about the harms of screening and informed consent, I wonder if your doctors are listening or is it business as usual at the surgery level, for most of your doctors anyway?

    • “We’ve seen a seismic shift in the last 25 years. And although the road is long, I’m very hopeful and confident that in the next 25 years, it will be second nature to engage patients in conversations about these important health care decisions”, says the lady in the article.

      Elizabeth, we could be dead by then.

      • Ada, yes, I know….
        I used to think that I’d be talking to myself about the outrageous treatment of women by these programs and the medical profession for the rest of my life, but things are changing…it’s been painfully slow progress, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
        I’m still amazed that most of my posts sit uncensored on all sorts of websites, that was not the case a decade ago…and many women agree with my comments, that wouldn’t have happened either, it would have been a barrage of outrage and abuse.
        No one has accused me of killing women for sometime now.

        There is no doubt in my mind though that the ONLY reason they are finally changing our program is because more women are refusing to follow our program, they can no longer get the numbers, (it’s harder to deceive, pressure and trap informed women) and it’s the ONLY reason our GPs now provide the Delphi Screener. (I doubt it’s ever mentioned to women, but there in case an informed woman asks for it, they want to keep their claws in as many women as possible)
        The evidence is getting to more women and it’s comforting to know when we go…there are at least more informed women around to continue warning/educating and supporting women.
        So the ignorant and compliant pool of women is getting smaller all the time, that spells trouble for these highly unethical and harmful programs. (I’d add unlawful)

      • Elizabeth, I am in awe of the amount of work you have put in over the years, and how much abuse you must have put up with in the early days, from people believing that this ridiculous test was the golden solution to women’s health. I’m also grateful to Sue for maintaining this website, which has been a source of comfort for all of us battling the system. But I also think that the logistical and cultural problems of bringing pap smears to the third world where cc is more prevalent has been a major factor in the pap reaching the end of the road. These women do not live in an over-medicalised society where the stirrups are promoted as a part of a woman’s health maintenance, so a less invasive solution such as a vaccine had to be found. We can be grateful to women everywhere for refusing to attend, and pushing for change. I would so much love to see this screening programme fall like a house of cards, and those who have pushed this testing, in the courts for human rights abuses.

    • The united states still has long ways to go. Woman hear are still pushed to have “well woman exams”. When woman submit to pelvic exams every year they have no idea they are given paps at the same time. Don’t get me started on american TV and movies. Drenched in healthy woman going to gyns joke’s about being up in stiurups ” because all woman have too” so why not make a joke about it. So much brain washing and all these reality TV shows with the healthy femail cast filmed going to gyns. I’m sick of it.

      • There’s an episode coming up in the new series of Orange is the New Black, called “The Rapiest Pap Smear”. I can’t find any synopsis but comparing it to a rape, and knowing that the programme and book it’s based on are very much focused on how the prison service cares (or doesn’t) for its female inmates, I’m hoping this will be the first time pap smear objection is raised on a popular television programme.

36. “I would so much love to see this screening programme fall like a house of cards, and those who have pushed this testing, in the courts for human rights abuses”

    So would I…that would be a huge step forward in women’s healthcare and improve quality of life, this testing has a huge and negative impact on our lives.
    The African rates of cc have been used here to scare women into our program, the lies are shocking, “we don’t have these rates because we have a fabulous, amazing, stupendous cervical screening program, we’re all sooooo lucky”
    Of course, we all know that’s absolute rubbish.
    I know the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are vaccinating some African women (HPV) and some pap testing is being conducted here and there.
    CC IS a problem in Africa, but other things are still far more likely to take your life…violence, starvation, childbirth, diseases like AIDS, TB, malaria etc.

    The numbers taken from the World Health 2012 Global Burden of Disease chart: (WHO)

    AFRICA – Deaths in 2014
    620,000 HIV/AIDS
    289,000 Childbirth (or as a result of childbirth)
    320,000 Malaria
    203,000 Starvation
    124,000 TB
    50,000 Cervical cancer
    26,000 Syphillis
    4492 Ebola

    I don’t mean to be flippant about the higher rates of cc in Africa, but decent condoms handed out to the population, educating men and women on their proper use, and promoting contraception/safe sex makes more sense than pap testing and HPV vaccination. (condoms would also, reduce the risk of HPV and pregnancies)

    So even in Africa, does it make sense to channel lots of resources into pap testing, vaccines etc. when there are far greater risks? Although that’s what we do in the developed world, we spend a fortune on cervical screening and ignore or underfund FAR more likely risks to our health.
    Training women to be midwives and funding their services would also, save more lives.

    The hysteria about cc in the developed world has IMO, been manufactured by the program itself, by pressure/lobby/women’s groups (who haven’t a clue) and by those with a vested interest in screening and over-treatment. (and by the very large number of “survivors”)

    • I’ve been investigating the UK government’s new ”Be clear on cancer” campaign, as I saw one of the first adverts on TV last night. The campaign is sensibly, deliberately avoiding 2 things: cervical cancer is not part of the campaign, much to the disgust of Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, (who have made it part of their manifesto to get back into the campaign). The other is that screening is not featuring as any part of the campaign. The emphasis is on making clear what the symptoms are, and telling people to get their symptoms checked out if they have had them for more than 3 weeks. I agree with this policy, and hope it will see a shift in tackling the main cancers, rather than the pink ribbon ones.

      I also read an article, (can’t find the link now), about how to wind down screening programmes, and this said that instead of having the “all or nothing” 80% incentive target for doctors, this should be changed to a stepped system of bonuses, so the poor doctors don’t suddenly find themselves with a drop in income, and can settle for something a lot less than 80%. This change has happened in the UK recently, and we now have the stepped increment system. Another change is that the centralised management of the cervical screening programme has been wound up, and devolved to local authorities, who have been left to promote or not promote their services as they see fit.
      Yes, it is the start of the big people at the top, washing the blood off their hands.

37. Uncovering more truths about all this HPV and cancer business.

    I just came across this tidbit. The AAV2 virus. This virus does not cause disease but women who have it are NOT likely to get cervical cancer from an HPV infection. It has antitumor activity.
    http://jvi.asm.org/content/83/19/10286.full

    So quite bogus to push pap tests and HPV tests to scare women.

    • Now they’ll probably try to put this virus in some kind of injection that’ll do other shit. Cynical of me, I know.

38. Hi everyone, I’ve been pretty busy lately but I still think of you all.
    I just got a note from my daughter’s school about vaccinations. They want to do HPV, varicella and diptheria,tetanus and pertussis vaccinations. I am refusing the HPV vaccine on the grounds that it says by consenting to the HPV vaccine you are also consenting to your daughter’s details being collected by the National HPV Vaccination Program Register and linkage to the National and Cervical State Cervical Screening Program Register. And then of course they have the blurb about how 2 yearly pap smears are still important, even after getting the vaccine. So angry that they think they can give my daughter’s medical details to whomever.

39. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2014/201/5/information-provision-cervical-screening-australia

    We all know what happens in Australia, informed consent in WOMEN’S cancer screening is an academic concept largely ignored in medical practice, in some cases there is no consent at all.
    We have the AMA continuing to “link” pap testing and the Pill, one spokesman even seemed to be endorsing medical coercion. We have doctors who see the consult for the Pill as an opportunity to engage in excess and to pressure/force/mislead women into cancer screening.
    Talk of taking the Pill off script has the AMA screaming, “NO!”
    The pathetic attempts to justify keeping the Pill on script are so transparently about maintaining market share and protecting profits from over-screening, excess biopsies and over-treatment.
    The AMA still protects our cervical and breast screening programs, not women.
    A doctor objecting to the Pill coming off script said he saw the consult as an opportunity to do STI testing, talk about the importance of breast self exams, do a pap test and blood pressure test.
    Yet this same doctor I’ll bet would not vote for condoms to go on script so men might be forced into the consult room for STI testing (they get STIs too) or a testicular exam. (not recommended, but neither is breast self-exams, it doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to the female body)
    It’s clear that many/most of our doctors “assume” consent for pap testing, they view it as mandatory, something we must or should do…that’s not ethical cancer screening.

    • Yeah, the very same AMA is actively pushing the eHealth upon us. They are dreaming of compulsory usage of eHealth to be forced through. Even though that there are many doctors who say that compulsory (or opt-ot) eHealth will damage the patient-doctor relationship, destroy the remnants of trust and make people avoid seeking health care due to privacy and information security concerns.

      I guess as much as practicing doctors can be bent, the health bureaucrats are even worse!

      • I don’t get it. How does eHealth work into anything? Is it just having a record to harass people with? Not for nothing, but falsifying records isn’t really a new thing & neither is identity theft.

      • My experience of eHealth is not good. I dropped out of the pap testing stream years ago when i told them to discontinue the letters. However i did not know that they could keep all my information and contact my new family doctor when I signed up with one. My refusal to get paps and other cancer screenings and meet other bonus rewarding goals such as vaccinations destroyed the relationship i had with the family doctor. In fact i think he was actually stalking me. Whatever he recorded in my medical records is there forever and i have no access to read it or correct it.

      • The aim of eHealth is not to improve the patients’ involvement in their own health care, nor to help those doctors who are really acting in the interests of their patients.

        eHealth system is instituted to assists the governments in keeping the public under medical surveliance, and in finding new ways of making the health care cheaper (note: “cheaper” doesn’t mean more affordable) while scoring maximum political brownie points.

        Only a medical bureocrat who has never saved anyone’s life or made a good difference in anyone’s health could propose and insist that violating people’s privacy and undermining their security by storing personal information in a spread-out system like eHealth is a “big improvement” in national health care.

      • Alice, the care.data system in the UK was to make patients medical records electronically available to those across the medical profession who needed to access them, a good idea, but then it became clear that private non-medical people such as insurance and drug companies would be able to access them. The onus was on the patient to opt out, and, unexpectedly, huge numbers of patients started opting out. It was then realised that opting out of care.data also took patients out of cancer screening, so many in fact that the NHS started disregarding patients wishes and put them back into care.data again so they could be sent their recalls. It has been total chaos in the UK, no-one knows what it means to opt-in or opt-out anymore.

      • @ adawells
        Precisely! Here in Australia we also were initially promised that eHealth will be exclusively for the patients’ good and in total patient’s control. It was rolled out as voluntary opt-in.

        However, the uptake was very low: only 5% of population trusted the government system to collect and keep their most private and sensitive information. There were weaknesses and security holes in eHealth, and many people already knew that Australian Medicare (another government-run health-related system that initially was meant to manage tax-funded subsidies) became a means of government surveillance over Australian people (it reports of people’s movements to other government departments and discloses personal data to research companies) and has hundreds of privacy breaches every year. The Medicare system is run by the same department that is now responsible for maintaining and imposing on people the eHealth and another eGovernment initiative that forces the people to submit and keep all their personal affair data online (tax, children benefits, vaccination, disability, vaccination, passports, etc.) — all this information is out there for hackers to hack and commit identity thefts.

        The low uptake of Australian eHealth was people’s reply: they had enough of privacy invasion, surveillance and risking to become a victim of identity theft!

        So, how did the Australian government react? Did they listen? Huh!
        They made it impossible for individuals to use tax-calculating software without registering an online account with eGovernment. There are also rumours that soon people won’t be allowed to mail paper tax forms — everyone will be forced to go online. The government also proposed eHealth to be made opt-out, with diminished patient’s control of what goes and stays on record. AMA supported the idea and proclaimed that if patients have any control over their medical records, the records become useless to the medical system, despite many doctors saying that doctor-patient trust is more important than a record. Many Australians are suspecting that eventually the opt-out ability in eHealth will be removed, and everyone will have an online health file, whether they want it or not.

        Many people are going back to using paper and other old-fashioned means because they feel it is more secure. And they very suspicious of every new eSolution that is rolled out and touted as something wonderful, because even small medical centres are mowing towards heavy usage of integrated IT systems where “everything is in the cloud”, and the patients’ records are linked to recall and reminder functions. But they forget (or have no idea) that the software solutions they are purchasing and using may be of low quality, made and maintained overseas in third world countries, and “the cloud” means that the patients’ information is kept who-knows-where.

        It is very ironic. The doctors often tell us that patients shouldn’t make medical decisions and interfere with their health care because they don’t have adequate training. Doctors spent years in a medical a school, and therefore doctors know better. But when it comes to data safety, hackers, information leaks, security holes and clear understanding where exactly the data is kept and how it is safeguarded, how much an average doctor knows about all that? Do they have adequate training in this area? No! Which means they shouldn’t be using these systems and endangering their patients just because that is convenient or fashionable.

    • I don’t take the pill but if I went to my doc for a repeat prescription I’d expect that and no more. If I. Wanted to discuss my sexual health or my breast health I’d bring it up myself!!

40. Creepy. There is a very possessive manner with medical personnel, I’ve noticed. At least that seems to be the case in the Anglosphere/America-esque countries. Plenty of other ones seem to leave people alone more. That, and they don’t seem to be so inclined toward iatrogenic attack across the board.

41. Important Australian study that shows informed women are less likely to have breast screening. (it comes as no surprise to me)
    It also, says to me the program will fight this move to give women risk information, they’re chasing a target and don’t want women going off and making informed decisions not to screen….they’re counting breasts and have no interest in anything that might put women off screening.
    http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60123-4/abstract

42. http://margaretmccartney.com/2015/02/19/lancet-informed-women-choose-breast-screening-less-often/
    Check out the comparison between the brochure that properly informs women of risks and benefits and the current brochure on breast screening.

    • Even the fluffy pink pamphlet is not as stupid as the one they put out in Canada. I might add that finding a lump in the armpit is not serious. Usually it is a swollen gland and goes away. I see women runnig off the doctor because thye have a swollen gland.

      What neither pamphlet states is that women can die from cancer treatments themselves because they weaken the immune system. I have seen this many times. Also a person might have a small less serious type of cancer tumour the first time but the depressing effects of the treatment on the immune system causes a more serious type of cancer to grow in the next few years. The statistics will show that successful cancer treatments are deaths that are prevented for 5 years only even if the quality of life is pathetic.

      • I heard of that too: the “successful” cancer treatment stats include every patient who was alive for 5 years after the diagnosis. They can die next day after 5 years – still counted as successful survivor. They can live for 5 years in dreadful pain and misery – still reported as success of the modern medicine.

43. Pardon for the rant, but I simply have to went it out in the company of educated people, because I feel like I work amongst a group of suicedees.

    Yeasterday I ended up doing some work in an office with all female staff. They were talking about everything, and someone said that someone’s 97yo relative has just been operated for some tumour. Then the talk went about people dying of all sorts of cancers, and then one lady said that cancer is everywhere and it scares her that her 20yo daughter is so slack about her own health. She is already 20 and only had a Pap smear once(!) She is walking towards a certain death of cervical cancer if she wouldn’t look after herself and won’t do Paps more often.

    I couldn’t bear that medieval noncence any longer and told the worried woman to stop panicking. If her daughter was living in Finland or Netherlands, she wouldn’t have had any Paps for at least another 10 years, and yet would have had a much smaller chance of ever developing cervical cancer, though even in Australia her chances tiny.

    Then another lady spoke up, saing she disagrees because her daughter was saved from cancer at the age of 21 by a Pap smear. She had multiple treatments during a few years, and now at the age of 30 has troubles getting pregnant, but at least she is alive!

    And then another woman spoke in support of this Australian female genitals mutilation cervical screening program saying that her daughter’s friend had “cancer” when she was 23 and if it wasn’t for Pap she would sure be dead now.

    It no longer mattered what I tried to say about the facts, the research, the unnecessary harm… The herd was sure that Paps saved nearly each woman from a certain cancer death at their early 20s and onwards, and those who doubt the doctor’s recommendations and the life-saving program need to be forced to “take care of themselves”.

    It is such a terrible feeling to see people just handing their bodies over to the system and being so sure that whatever it does, it is always for their own good. I just feel sorry for their daughters who had to go through agonising “treatments” for absolutely no valid reason.

    • Heather you are spot on, and I think it is one of the main reasons why the many women who don’t roll up for screening keep their heads down, and don’t raise the subject.
      Don’t despair, as you may have sown a seed of doubt amongst those who work in this office. The more these people feel they haven’t got everyoine in agreeement the less likely they will be to raise the subject in future. The first time these things are mentioned you will get outright disbelief and resistance to the idea, but sooner or later they will come across someone else, who doesn’t believe in the screening mantra, and once they spot a few others in the herd, a tipping point will be reached and they will start to doubt the whole system. It is happening already. Every time there was a news item that women are not going to their screening tests, there would be posts condemning them – now we are seeing a lot of posters fighting back, and it has forced many of these pro-screening people onto the defensive. They are beginning to realise that they will come in for criticism if they say these things, and are not coming out in so much support anymore. A lot of these programmes need a minimum of 70% attendance to make them viable, and in the UK attendance rate for paps is 78% for attending once in 5.5 years, when the recommendation is 3.5 years for those under 50. Attendance at 3.5 years is only about 73% in the UK. It only requires a drop of 8% to make these programmes unviable, and it is steadily going our way. I have read in a NHS document that attendance at paps is expected to slump this year quite drastically due to the first cohort of vaccinated girls entering our screening programme here in the UK. It is music to my ears to hear many of them, like the daughter of your work colleague, saying that they’ve been sold the vaccination on the basis they won’t get cervical cancer, and they feel they’ve had enough not to have to do the paps as well. The young women of today are more sassy than we were and they have the internet, which we didn’t. We don’t need to get 70% of women to see the light, if just 8% more make a stand against this form of FGM, the rest of the herd will follow.

      • You are so right! That’s exactly what the daughter of the colleague was telling her mother: she was rounded up for HPV/Cervical cancer jabs at school years ago with the promises to save her from something like 90% of genital cancers. So now she no longer wants to be the government’s guinea pig and thinks that she has that cancer “covered”. She says there are other things in life to worry about.

        She sounds like an bright girl to me. Especially nice to hear this given that she is now studying to be a nurse.

        And you are absolutely right that we don’t need to convince all the “papping” herd to analyse the true facts. (A person can be tricked to believe the government’s BS, to believe that this sanctioned FGM will save them from a “rampant” cancer, but it is impossible to make the person TO THINK, unless they want to.) Just another 8% (around 13% in Australia) of women, and the government will have to work hard to justify this waste of money. I sincerely hope that one day the health austhoritues will also have answer for all the harm they have done over all these years, after if became known that pap screening does more harm than good.

    • What’s so damn good about not dying if you’re not going to be living your own life?

      Also, I’d definitely think they’d have an issue if the HUSBAND told them to do this. I’d be more than willing to bet if their FATHER made a demand, they’d disregard it.

44. Good news from Alexandra Barratt in Sydney regarding overdiagnosis in breast screening:
    Overdiagnosis in mammography screening: a 45 year journey from shadowy idea to acknowledged reality
    http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h867

    It recommends:
    “Quality information for patients.
    Many women continue to be “prescribed” or encouraged to undergo screening rather than being supported to make an informed choice. Women should be given information that has been carefully developed and tested, because information is an intervention that may have both positive and detrimental effects.

    Screening targets for screening services should be questioned, and consideration should be given to ensuring the provision of balanced information—for example, using the “consider an offer” approach outlined by Entwistle and colleagues in 2008. Practitioners should not be incentivised to achieve participation, nor should high participation in screening be regarded as a marker of health service quality.

    Think twice before extending screening programmes.
    Extending screening to women in their 70s has been shown to significantly increase the incidence of early stage breast cancer, and this could have detrimental effects for older women. The risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer is influenced by competing mortality risks, which increase with age”.

    Good to see this article from the BMJ published just days ago, but is shocking it has taken 45 years. Weren’t Baum et al saying this decades ago?

45. http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/107/4/djv014.abstract

    Anyone with access might find this article on over-diagnosis in cancer screening of interest.
    “Conceptualizing Overdiagnosis in Cancer Screening
    Pamela M. Marcus, Philip C. Prorok, Anthony B. Miller, Emily J. DeVoto and Barnett S. Kramer”

46. http://www.cochrane.org/CD006013/GYNAECA_women-can-experience-high-levels-of-anxiety-at-all-stages-of-screening-for-cervical-cancer-including-colposcopy

    We know colposcopy, biopsies and treatments cause a lot of anxiety, here’s something from the NCI website, yet here in Australia we maximize the risk of these things occurring to women with early screening and serious over-screening. It means about 77% of screened women will face a colposcopy and usually at least a biopsy, that a lot of anxiety, most of it could be easily avoided, if they cared about women. As it stands it’s a great source of income for doctors, specialists, pathologists etc. 77% of screened women would amount to HUGE profits.

    • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14529684
      Yes the studies showed that only playing music seemed to reduce the stress and “perceived pain” (as if the pain was not real or exaggerated). Information leaflets did not help except to scare them to come back for more treatments.

      The information given to women about colposcopies is that “a special microscope will be used to look at your cervix. It does not touch the body”. No mention of someone looking at your genitals on a huge video screen, no mention of speculum use, no mention of painful biopsies (at least four recommended).

47. This should also be added here….in stunning, undeniable simplicity….the one thing we should always have but rarely get

    informed consent in·formed consent (ĭn-fôrmd’)
    n.
    Consent by a patient to a surgical or medical procedure or participation in a clinical study after achieving an understanding of the relevant medical facts and the risks involved.
    …..nuff said 🙂

    • No, it’s consent- period. They can always say “Well, you just don’t know enough” or “There isn’t time to explain” or “You’re not in your right mind if you’re arguing with us” if it’s a question of being informed or not. They pull this with men & women, sometimes not even with the strange stuff.

      Speaking of which: With children, because they’re not seen to be capable of consenting validly to something, their refusal is also seen as nonsense. I figure people in the medical profession are VERY quick to size things up in that proportion- that they’re “like children & don’t know anything.” The situation with kids is fucked-up plenty of times & I don’t know what to say about it- parents sometimes pull bad shit as parents & sometimes they BLOCK bad shit as parents. The medical personnel taking that same mentality with adults is an issue if they are grading that discretion of the adults.

48. If you have access to the BMJ:
    http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h867
    “Overdiagnosis in mammography screening: a 45 year journey from shadowy idea to acknowledged reality” by Alexandra Barrett, Australian Professor of Public Health.
    “Alexandra Barratt summarises and debates overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening and discusses how myriad uncertainties might be resolved so we can move forward”

49. Click to access Board%2014_McCaffery%20Kirsten.pdf

    Interesting study on cervical screening, over-treatment and young women.
    I’d also, say we’ve been trained to greatly fear this rare cancer and many women mistake over-treatment for actual treatment or lives saved.
    It says to me the ability to make informed decisions about cancer screening relies on the provision of real and balanced information and screening presented as a choice. (respect for informed consent)

50. Interesting that they put this down to “the cancer effect” and “high negative emotions” surrounding cancer. What about bullying tactics pursued by target driven doctors, alarmist reporting in the media and the usual emotional blackmailing by medical personnel that accompanies this screening? As always, it is always the patient who is at fault, and never the medical business itself which is doing much to drive the scaremongering machine.
    It would be wonderful if someone could record some of the things doctors say to us to bully us into this testing and put it on YouTube. I’d just love to find out if anyone has put such a thing on the web.

51. The new cervical screening leaflet for the Netherlands
    http://www.rivm.nl/dsresource?type=pdf&disposition=inline&objectid=rivmp:271685&versionid=&subobjectname=

    Choice is clearly mentioned, privacy of information covered, how they got the womans name and address clearly stated, what the information is used for, low prevalence of the disease stated, and finally, how and who to respond and/or complain about the programme if the woman wants to. Much of this information kept from British women.

52. I smell vested interests in this study, desperate to keep HPV AND pap testing in place in the States, of course, we know that this combination produces the MOST over-investigation for no additional benefit to women.
    http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hpv-only-screening-misses-more-cervical-cancers-in-women-30-and-older-than-pap-only-or-pap-hpv-co-testing-finds-national-study-300065452.html

    Interesting the Dutch did not arrive at this conclusion, they’ll be using stand alone HPV primary testing. (pap testing will be confined to about 5% of women – those HPV+ and aged 30 to 60)

    “Cervical cancer was the leading cancer killer of women in the United States before the introduction of the Pap test. Our latest Quest Diagnostics Health Trends study involving one of the largest populations of co-tested women shows that the Pap test should continue to play a front-line role in the battle against cervical cancer,” said Douglas S. Rabin, M.D., medical director, women’s health, Quest Diagnostics.”

    Absolute rubbish….interesting, you find a study that makes no sense and then you see a statement like that…and the “study” suddenly makes sense. Consider the vast sums lost to vested interests if HPV primary testing is introduced and used the right way….HUGE sums down the drain. IMO, this is about protecting the business model, nothing to do with women’s healthcare.
    Actually: basic research is all that’s required to find…
    LUNG cancer is the No. 1 “cancer” killer of men AND women.
    Heart disease/attacks is the No. 1 killer of men and women.

    Cervical cancer is not even the No. 1 cancer confined to women, that would be breast cancer, cc is way down the list, and it was always way down the list. We’ve been told for years that this cancer was a huge issue before pap testing, not true, it was always rare and in natural decline before pap testing even began, interesting how they start to believe their own propaganda. When your statements and “evidence” is never challenged, you can confidently quote misinformation.

    “Nearly 787,000 people in the U.S. died from heart disease, stroke and other
    cardiovascular diseases in 2011. That’s about one of every three deaths in
    America.
    • About 2,150 Americans die each day from these diseases, one every 40
    seconds.
    • Cardiovascular diseases claim more lives than all forms of cancer combined.
    • About 85.6 million Americans are living with some form of cardiovascular disease
    or the after-effects of stroke. ”
    (Statistics provided by the American Heart Association)

    Makes you wonder why they obsess about cervical cancer, while heart disease continues to kill huge numbers of women.
    Whenever they exaggerate the risk of cc or the benefit of pap testing, I know it’s about them, justifying excess to protect the billions made from over-screening/inappropriate screening and over-treatment.

    • Really? Isn’t it quite accepted that 100% of cervical cancers are HPV positive. I just had to google HPV negative cervical cancer. I even found several citations. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9155707

      I thought the Dutch used a self HPV test? Is that choice still offered to them or is their HPV test only done in a speculum exam?

53. Checked them out on Wikipedia and this is what came up:
    “Quest Diagnostics set a record in April 2009 when it paid $302 million to the government to settle a Medicare fraud case alleging the company sold faulty medical testing kits. It was the largest qui tam (whistleblower) settlement paid by a medical lab for manufacturing and distributing a faulty product.[4] In May 2011, Quest paid $241 million to the state of California to settle a False Claims Act case that alleged the company had overcharged Medi-Cal, the state’s medical aid program for low-income individuals, and provided illegal kickbacks as incentives for healthcare providers to use Quest labs.”

54. Oh, yes, I’m definitely taking their advice! Thanks Ada…

55. http://www.wdxcyber.com/unprotected-sex-may-worsen-endometriosis.html

    Condoms may be a good idea if you suffer from endometriosis.
    The good old condom is a great contraceptive, (used correctly) protects from STIs (one study showed the risk of HPV was reduced by 70% when condoms were used every time) and now, this study.
    PLUS another great benefit – avoiding pap test crazy doctors.
    If that’s not a great sales promotion, don’t know what is….
    I wonder if the condom is often labeled “unreliable” by the medical profession to keep women under medical control, let’s face it, the Pill consult has been used to avoid consent and informed consent in cancer screening and to tack on all sorts of invasive excess. A method that cuts out doctors is not in THEIR interests.

    I saw a study quite a few years ago that showed “unscreened” women were more likely to rely on condoms, not the Pill or any other method that required medical involvement.
    I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to read that…I’ve never asked a doctor for the Pill, thus avoiding most pap test pressure. There is a good reason why the Pill was linked to the pap test, to FORCE women into screening…so screening with NO consent.

56. http://msc.sagepub.com/content/22/2/93.full.pdf+html

    Honestly, how many studies are funded about cervical screening?
    It’s an absolute waste of money, the cancer is rare! AND as usual, they can’t take NO for an answer.
    This study: how often do “late” or unscreened women visit their GP over a 12 month period? Is there an opportunity to increase screening coverage? How about offering HPV self testing to “late” or unscreened women during these consults?
    Once again they think nothing of sticking their nose into our precious consult time: perhaps, we might want to talk about the reason for our visit. Chances are whatever it is, it’s FAR more likely to be an issue than cervical cancer. Also, pressure in the consult room can put women off seeing their doctor for REAL health issues, not good for our health.
    These people refuse to take NO for an reason. Constantly plotting, how do we get to these women? The attitude clearly is: all women must or should screen, how do we capture them?

    Time these people had a look at heart disease, a REAL health issue, instead of obsessing about a rare cancer and screening some of us don’t NOT, NO means NO, end of story

    • Got to build their empires up and keep themselves in a job haven’t they? What I find highly amusing about this, is that they keep reeling out the old story that women find it so, so difficult to make a smear test appointment, and that they are too, too busy, and simply can’t get time off work, and here we are reading in this report that at least half the women visit their doctor at least once a year. The penny just doens’t seem to drop that these women are turning down the offer of a smear test. They ARE saying NO!
      East London has a huge migrant population, and they make a big deal out of the pelvic exam being too embarrassing for them out of cultural reasons. Never mind about other women in the UK who also find this test totally unacceptable, we are expected to put up with it. I am concerned they are thinking of keeping HPV self test kits on limited supply for Asian communities, only. I remember reading once, that HPV testing is more expensive than the pap, and will not replace the pap in countries which have a cheap, widespread pap scheme running. As you say, Elizabeth, it is all down to economics and keeping one’s job. Women just have to suffer.

      • As I have said time and time again, IF a woman wants a smear test, she will make time for one. The people that trot out all the usual excuses about why women “fail” to have a test don’t seem to understand that if a woman wants to do something she will. Women find time for everything else in their lives. They multitask for goodness sake! I manage a full time job, children, parents, nail appointments, shopping, housework, walking the dog etc etc. My friends and colleagues have similar lives. I’m sure I could squeeze in a smear test if I wanted one. As Ada has pointed out, the women in the report managed to find time to see a GP!

        Doctor, which part of NO I don’t want to talk about my cervix in this consult is so difficult to understand?

      • The thing is that the immigrants tend to stand their ground & not “make their case.” They don’t ask someone, they TELL them. I think (and pardon the phrasing, since it’s not strictly limited in this way) that white people tend to think it’s being “nasty” to outright make a statement, instead of to ask a question.

        Bet they wouldn’t do that if someone was to try stealing their wallet or their phone, though. Isn’t that odd? Compared to someone making their own decisions about what goes where anatomically, some women seem to have more of an issue with someone looking in their purse for gum or answering her phone to tell someone she’s in the bathroom (which is kind of mindless, but it happens). I imagine that’s not everyone, but it’s a resolute & definite response that is non-affirmative.

        I get that there’s different stuff going on & there’s different things at work- namely that it doesn’t seem to be realized that an action has to be engaged in order to occur, so this isn’t something that just “appears” because she’s a woman. That & simple coercion or tricking people into thinking that they’re going to die without screeening measures to “scare cancer off” (never said by the people this is directed at, but it seems to be mentally equated with eating Vitamin C to not get scurvy).

57. It looks like the Australian government is proceeding with its plan to force everyone to have an electronic health record. At the moment, only the people who signed up for this privacy-invading system have the eHeath record. However, the Australian public turned out to be smarter than the government expected, and less than 10% signed up. So the government is going to create the record for everyone, promising that those who are not willing will be able to opt out. However, it is still unclear how simple the opt out process will be, and whether opting out will truly delete the patient’s data.

    Once the Australian government forced everyone to have the myHealth Record (that’s how they propose to call the PCEHR), it will most likely to use the system for surveillance of women, for sending screening recalls and reminders, and for hounding down those who refuse pap smears, mammograms and other harmful procedures.

    The opt-out will probably be available on the initial stages, to calm the public outrage, and removed later. So it may be wise to take the opportunity to opt out as soon as possible.

    • Thanks for that Alice, I’ll be opting out, but it irks me that we have to opt out of things we didn’t join in the first place. If a call and recall system is introduced for cervical screening, (or breast screening) I’ll be opting out of that too.
      I couldn’t agree more with your comments, women find the time for things that are important, we multi-task. I think they play down the embarrassment factor because they’ve been telling us for years to get over it, we HAVE to get used to it….ummm, no, we don’t actually. One of the principles for an ethical screening program, the test must be acceptable to the target population. You can see before the strong arm tactics, few women bothered with them, they had to break the law and behave appallingly to force women into the program.

      They always trot out the old, “women don’t make time for themselves”, I find it laughable that having a pap test is about making time for ourselves. Here it’s 2 yearly for most of your life, for most women it’s an unpleasant experience, for others it’s an ordeal, and MOST of it is completely unnecessary.
      It never ceases to amaze me the money they have to spend on cervical screening, vast sums. Brain cancer receives much less funding, we don’t hear a lot about it.
      It’s vested interests, the programs, and all of the “survivors” keeping these programs in place, and well funded to the detriment of far more serious risks.
      Mental illness and suicide has always been under-funded, woeful, if we were losing as many women from cc, they’d be funneling even more into these programs and awareness campaigns. it doesn’t seem to matter that more people of dying as a result of mental illness, heart disease etc.

      This is not about healthcare or we’d be casting an eye over all risks, where should we spend our scarce health resources? But NO, it’s vested interests protecting their turf, that’s one of the reasons why these programs have become untouchable, are so sensitive, “don’t get too close, how dare you, we’re busy saving lives!”.

      We’ll do HPV primary testing on women aged 25 and older, even though basic research tells us this is a BAD idea, we should not test before age 30. How can so many seemingly intelligent people ignore the evidence?
      It says to me the only way change can get through is keeping vested interests on side, happy, toss them some young women to test and over-treat. (40% will be HPV+)
      The program/government/medical profession can’t be honest at this point, they have too much to hide – they’ve misled women from the start, (even blatant lies) and harmed huge numbers.

      • http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/12/doctors-to-withhold-treatments-in-campaign-against-too-much-medicine
        I noticed that incentive targets have been highlighted as a cause of over-medicalisation, but wonder if screening will appear in this list of 100 items causing over-treatment.

58. So “Choosing Wisely” has finally come to the UK. Haven’t we been choosing what tests we don’t want for years, and the medical people have been drowning patients out!
    http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2308

59. https://theconversation.com/most-people-want-to-know-risk-of-overdiagnosis-but-arent-told-41889
    Exactly, and note Breast Screen here are still running prime time ads using celebrities to sell breast screening. Yes, celebrities, at this late stage with all we know about over-diagnosis and when it seems clear the risks of screening exceed any benefit.
    They clearly see themselves above the law and decent ethical standards (and have no moral qualms either) I hope they get a brutal reminder at some point that they have/had no right to risk our health and lives to protect their jobs and precious program and to focus on a govt-set screening target.

    • Thanks for this. I didn’t know about this “magazine”. Glad to see my institution is among those supporting it.

    • Brilliant thank you for this – have you read the comments? Some good links from Elizabeth Hart.

      • But she has come under heavy fire from some academics…

60. Ada,
    There are quite a few people on that site that like to stick in the boots, they tend to talk down to you, “I’m the expert/doctor….” etc.
    I responded to Dave on that thread, but his opening line contains a put-down.
    The site seems to attract a lot of experts with a fixed position on screening and other topics; nothing will change their minds. (some are protecting their own interests)
    I’ve been amazed at the number of experts who instantly dismiss the new Dutch program or the Delphi Screener. How can you instantly dismiss something that will start next January?
    It’s not theory, it’s actually happening. They can’t argue the Dutch have lots more cc…so it comes back to put-downs to hopefully, silence dissenters.

    • http://theconversation.com/we-all-feel-disgust-but-why-do-some-of-us-turn-it-on-ourselves-39338

      Thanks for the warning Elizabeth, I’ll tread very carefully. I have already posted to the above topic and am awaiting a response. The authors say that not attending smear tests is a form of self disgust and self loathing. I couldn’t let that go.

61. I tend to post once or twice on that site and leave it at that…some of the “experts” enjoy bullying posters with their “superior” knowledge. No point going down that path…IMO, they’re either ignorant or protecting self interest.

62. Interesting documentary following a number of Danish teenagers who’ve developed debilitating symptoms following HPV vaccination.
    http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/tv2-denmark-documentary-on-hpv-vaccine-shows-lives-of-young-women-ruined/

63. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3110114/Breast-cancer-screening-cuts-deaths-40-Analysis-10-million-patients-finds-regular-mammograms-saves-lives-middle-aged-women.html

    They never give up, the same groups, the same people, desperately trying to save the cash cow. No doubt this will be on the News tonight, Breast Screen always make a fuss about anything remotely positive about screening, but have nothing or little to say about the ever increasing mountain of damning evidence – over-diagnosis, risks exceed any benefit etc.
    I won’t be taking their advice…no screening for me, informed decision.

64. All on the news this morning http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32996531
    It goes on and on, anything to “increase uptake” – no-one should be attempting to increase uptake in any medical procedure – not without “informed consent” of errors, risks, complications and everything else that goes with it. Just provide all the honest information and leave us to decide for ourselves. Not one mention this morning on TV/Radio about risks and limitations, unbelievable!

    • This: “breast screening with mammography saves lives” on its own simply isn’t enough for more and more women. Yes, screening inevitably saves lives, but patients need to see that weighed against their risk of over-treatment and their risk if they don’t screen at all. I feel like the pro-screening argument gets an absolute statement: it saves lives. Whereas the pro-choice argument gets something more wishy-washey: “some over-treatment”. In my opinion, a lot of people read “some over-treatment” and imagine a minority of cases. So, 90% genuinely helped, 10% over-treated. I can’t comment for breast screening, but we know it’s more like 20% helped, 80% over-treated when it comes to cervical screening. I think people dismiss the over-treatment line because they don’t know the scale of it.

      • And as long as the pro-choice line remains wishy-washey, people will continue to think that screening is still a no-brainer to decide to take part in. As long as they believe it helps significantly more than it harms.

      • Well, someone here spotted a report which showed the cervical treatment rate was around 80,000 or so. So, if we accept the dubious claim of the screening Nazi’s that 5,000 lives are ‘saved’ by the crank ‘n scrape test, then the overtreatment rate is more like 93%.
        But hey, because it’s an internal organ and we can’t actually see the damage that’s done, that’s ok!
        The pro-screeners are incredibly narrow minded – they’re obsessed with ‘saving lives’ through their pet project and don’t see – or don’t want to see – the big picture. They don’t care about the vast numbers of healthy patients harmed along the way (victory at all costs!), and the fact that screening gobbles up huge resources which could be better spent elsewhere (and indeed, save more lives) seems too difficult for their tiny minds to process. It’s almost like they’ve become a part of a cult, religiously following the instructions of their leaders.
        They don’t call it ‘The church of modern medicine’ for nothing.

    • That Pauline Daniels is a menace to womankind. She’s just typical of the types the screeners love: banging on the doctors door demanding screening invitations, and then running around afterwards telling everyone she has been saved, and then ordering everyone to do the same as her. Like Jade Goody she’s a very good reason NOT to go for screening.

65. Sorry, clarifying yet again! 😀 We know the pro-choice line isn’t wishy-washey, but that’s how it gets presented in the media unless it’s a rare exception like Dr McCartney speaking up.

Comments are closed.