Beware The Great Mammogram SCAM
Dear Reader,
I’ve told you before that I’ll never recommend anything to you that I wouldn’t recommend to my own family—and mammograms are at the top of the list.
My wife is has never had a mammogram, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Mammograms are one of the biggest scams perpetrated by the medical community today. That’s because for all the hype, the pressure from doctors, and the scare tactics by the pink ribbon posse, mammograms simply don’t work.
Do they detect some tumors? Sure they do.
But I don’t measure success by the number of tumors found, but by number of lives saved. And study after study has found that mammograms simply don’t improve survival.
A few years ago, the Cochrane Institute carried out an analysis of 7 trials involving over 600,000 women from 39-74. These studies showed that there was NO DIFFERENCE in mortality among the women who received a mammogram and those who didn’t. That’s right, not ONE. SINGLE. LIFE. was saved with mammography.
Despite the lack of benefit, those who get a mammogram are 20% more likely to get a mastectomy and 30% more likely to have surgery—often unnecessarily, because mammograms frequently lead to overtreatment of relatively harmless tumors.
While the benefits are questionable, the dangers are not. Plenty of alarming studies show mammograms can actually CAUSE cancer. That’s because these devices expose the sensitive breast tissue to massive amounts of ionizing radiation, which is a known cancer-causing agent.
Not to mention the fact that the pressure alone caused by these squeeze boxes can actually cause any existing malignant cells to spread.
One study showed that high-risk women who were exposed to radiation had a 1.5 times greater risk of developing breast cancer than those not exposed to radiation. Women under 40 are at a greater risk because their breast tissue is highly sensitive to radiation.
Younger women also tend to have denser breast tissue, which leads to more false positive results.
False positives… overtreatment… no real evidence of saving lives.
And this is the industry’s number one screening tool for breast cancer?
Let’s be real here. The only reason mammograms are still so popular is because of FEAR and MONEY. Cancer is big business, and mammograms are the industry’s bread and butter.
I could go on, but I don’t want to just talk about the problem… I want to talk about the solution—and I’ve got just the thing.
In my practice in Tucson, our first line of defense against breast cancer is a technology called digital thermography. Most people have never heard of it, but this tool has been around for 35 years, more than 800 studies have been done on it, and Europe, Canada and Australia all use it for routine screening.
Thermography works by measuring infrared heat from your body and can be used over time to detect changes that occur. One of its key benefits is that it detects cancerous changes in the body FAR EARLIER than a mammogram can—which gives you the best chance for recovery.
Unlike mammograms, digital thermography uses NO radiation and NO compression.
Unlike mammograms, thermography is 90% accurate.
And best of all, unlike mammograms, thermography (when added to regular breast health checkups) increases survival rate by 61%.
It costs less, too.
It’s important to note that digital thermography can’t diagnose cancer, but what it can do is safely tell you if something suspicious is going on. Then—and only then—do I recommend getting a mammogram.
Before you expose your sensitive breast tissue to massive amounts of radiation, excessive pressure, unnecessary biopsies, and radical surgical procedures, talk to your doctor about thermography.
You’ll be glad you did.
To a brighter day,
Dr. Richard Gerhauser, M.D.
