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    Just Say No to Mammograms?

    Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 5:41 PM | By Emily Yoffe
    Hanna, the counterpart to your post about the dangers of prostate screening appeared in today's New York Times—a story about whether annual mammograms may be doing more harm than good. This isn't the first piece I've read that questions the mammogram orthodoxy. There's no argument that finding a potentially fatal breast cancer can save a life. But the skeptics say that many, many woman who have indolent cancers that would never progress are forced into surgery and chemotherapy. The problem is that medicine cannot sort the dangerous tumors from the relatively benign ones (and who'd have thought we'd hear that some cancers are better just left alone?). The piece ends with an expert in health risk saying having mammograms or not having mammograms are both reasonable choices for women to make. That's helpful!
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