{"id":251,"date":"2014-10-10T08:59:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T14:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/breast-cancer-awareness-are-women-overtreating-themselves.html"},"modified":"2015-02-26T23:17:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T05:17:36","slug":"breast-cancer-awareness-are-women-overtreating-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/breast-cancer-awareness-are-women-overtreating-themselves.html","title":{"rendered":"Breast Cancer Awareness – are women overtreating themselves?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Every October, I get annoyed at all the breast cancer-awareness promotions and the constant fundraising.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s just because I\u2019m flat-chested, but I don\u2019t identify at all with these commercials that tell us that women have a special connetion to their breasts. \u00a0Sorry. \u00a0And I don\u2019t go through life worrying about getting breast cancer. Instead, I\u2019m frustrated that all the \u201cawareness\u201d means that people overestimate their risk of dying of breast cancer vs. other causes \u2014 and that, as a consequence, the American Heart Association has introduced a promotion for women\u2019s heart health, the message of which is, \u201csorry we misled you, but you\u2019re at risk of heart disease, too!\u201d <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a feel-good piece<\/a> that a friend shared on facebook: \u00a0a woman who feels a lump, small enough that doctors believe it\u2019s likely nothing but send her for a biopsy and it turns out to be Stage 1 cancer. \u00a0She\u2019s now headed for chemo followed by complete mastectomy and reconstruction \u2014 which she adds is \u201cher choice.\u201d <\/p>\n

And \u2014 see, I\u2019m writing this without time to pull together the links, but because I\u2019m irritated at this \u2014 this is what bothers me. \u00a0Researchers have demonstrated that early-stage breast cancer does not require complete mastectomy, but women facing that decision are choosing the more extreme measures anyway, with a distrust of statistics in favor of what intuitively seems more correct. \u00a0Then, because they\u2019ve undergone the mastectomy, they join this club of \u201cbrave survivors.\u201d <\/p>\n

What bothers me more is the concept of \u201cStage 0\u201d breast cancer, the DCIS, the precancerous cells that show up on mammograms, which may or may not ever develop into something more \u2014 but women who have this are launched into the full regime of cancer treatments. <\/p>\n

Have researchers developed a protocol of determining when Stage 0 is \u201creal\u201d cancer? \u00a0Is there too much politics preventing them from telling even a group of test subjects, \u201clet\u2019s not treat this\u201d? \u00a0How many of the \u201c1 in 9\u201d women with breast cancer are these Stage 0 cases? <\/p>\n

Oh, and by the way, why is women\u2019s health more important than men\u2019s?<\/p>\n

Sorry for the gripe, and I\u2019ll try to look up some statistics on this later today. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every October, I get annoyed at all the breast cancer-awareness promotions and the constant fundraising. Maybe it\u2019s just because I\u2019m flat-chested, but I don\u2019t identify at all with these commercials that tell us that women have a special connetion to their breasts. \u00a0Sorry. \u00a0And I don\u2019t go through life worrying about getting breast cancer. Instead, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[188],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-breast-cancer"],"yoast_head":"\nBreast Cancer Awareness - are women overtreating themselves?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Every October, I get annoyed at all the breast cancer-awareness promotions and the constant fundraising.Maybe it's just because I'm flat-chested, but I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/breast-cancer-awareness-are-women-overtreating-themselves.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Breast Cancer Awareness - 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