[Debbie L.]

It would be interesting to ask this question of those who have died. Let me rephrase that. It would be interesting to know the answer to this question for those who have died of their breast cancer.

I suspect the answers would be very similar.

FINDING a breast cancer does not necessarily equate (alas) with SAVING A LIFE. Most of us on this list, btw, are too new to the game to say our life has been saved.

TREATING a breast cancer - yes, that does save some lives. But again, and alas -- not all lives, not yet.

As for finding your own lump - no one is saying that women do not find their own lumps, nor that they should NOT find their own lumps. I saw a stat that of the breast cancers that are not found by mammography, 80% are found by the women themselves, and not when doing formal BSE. No one is saying to ignore our breasts, nor to ignore suspicious findings in our breasts. The science is saying that doing a formal monthly exam in a specific manner does not improve outcome for women whose breast cancer is detected in this way.

I don't know how to say it more clearly. Take two groups of 100 women. Teach one group to do excellent breast exams and have them do them every month. Tell the other group of women to let us know if they notice anything different with their breasts. The rate of death from breast cancer will be exactly the same in both groups. We could get into the harms caused by the hyper-vigilance of BSE but we don't even need to. Even if there were no harms, why would we advise doing something that makes no difference to outcome?

Why would we want to spend millions of dollars telling women to do something that does not help them?

I don't understand why some of this anger is not directed at the fact that we've been deceived by the screening and awareness propaganda all these years.

Debbie Laxague