The most remarkable thing about Professor Christobel Saunders’s speech at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ annual conference was not that she criticized overuse of breast cancer screening. It’s that her criticism came as a surprise to anyone.
The medical community has known for years that cancer screenings, for all their benefits, are not an unalloyed good and in some cases are more likely to harm than help. In the particular case of breast cancer screenings, there is potential for harm both from overdiagnosis (i.e., where women endure painful or disfiguring treatments for low-grade cancers that never would have harmed them if left alone) and from the radiation dose in the screening itself.
That’s why the current medical consensus recommends regular mammograms only for women over 50. Younger women should get screened only if they have reason to suspect they may be at higher risk of developing breast cancer due to genetic or lifestyle factors.
But if this consensus is uncontroversial among medical experts, why did Dr. Saunders’s speech get written up by the Sydney Morning Herald as if it were news? Because ordinary Australians still don’t know about the risks of too much breast cancer screening. University of Sydney research in 2011 found most women had no idea of the risks of mammography. You might be thinking: If only there were some sort of national body dedicated to publicising up-to-date information about preventive health, so that Australians could make more informed choices.
There was such a body, of course: the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. Unfortunately, ANPHA, like many others in the preventive health sphere, chose to focus on politically flashy topics like tobacco, alcohol, and obesity, and neglected duller but more important forms of preventive health like mammography.
This misplacement of priorities contributed to the Abbott government’s decision to abolish ANPHA in 2014. It has also contributed to the public’s continued ignorance of important facts about breast cancer screening. And this ignorance, as Professor Saunders has reminded us, causes real harm to hundreds of Australian women every year.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Blame ‘preventive health’ pushers for public ignorance
Blame ‘preventive health’ pushers for public ignorance
The most remarkable thing about Professor Christobel Saunders’s speech at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ annual conference was not that she criticized overuse of breast cancer screening. It’s that her criticism came as a surprise to anyone.
The medical community has known for years that cancer screenings, for all their benefits, are not an unalloyed good and in some cases are more likely to harm than help. In the particular case of breast cancer screenings, there is potential for harm both from overdiagnosis (i.e., where women endure painful or disfiguring treatments for low-grade cancers that never would have harmed them if left alone) and from the radiation dose in the screening itself.
That’s why the current medical consensus recommends regular mammograms only for women over 50. Younger women should get screened only if they have reason to suspect they may be at higher risk of developing breast cancer due to genetic or lifestyle factors.
But if this consensus is uncontroversial among medical experts, why did Dr. Saunders’s speech get written up by the Sydney Morning Herald as if it were news? Because ordinary Australians still don’t know about the risks of too much breast cancer screening. University of Sydney research in 2011 found most women had no idea of the risks of mammography. You might be thinking: If only there were some sort of national body dedicated to publicising up-to-date information about preventive health, so that Australians could make more informed choices.
There was such a body, of course: the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. Unfortunately, ANPHA, like many others in the preventive health sphere, chose to focus on politically flashy topics like tobacco, alcohol, and obesity, and neglected duller but more important forms of preventive health like mammography.
This misplacement of priorities contributed to the Abbott government’s decision to abolish ANPHA in 2014. It has also contributed to the public’s continued ignorance of important facts about breast cancer screening. And this ignorance, as Professor Saunders has reminded us, causes real harm to hundreds of Australian women every year.
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