This has got to be one of the worst breast cancer prevention recommendations EVER!

Asking the right questions

There seems to be no end to this heartbreak.

We’ve lost so many mothers, sisters, wives, and friends to breast cancer. The thought of losing even just one more is unbearable.

But what’s truly agonizing is the thought of losing a single one of these lives in a horrible attempt to PREVENT breast cancer. Far worse is that we could lose thousands — maybe hundreds of thousands of women.

We can thank a gang of shortsighted government bureaucrats for this disaster. But don’t be shocked. It just so happens that this insane scheme will also boost drug sales.

Of course.

Unhealthy choice

A U.S. Preventive Service Task Force panel says that healthy women over 40 at high risk of breast cancer should take tamoxifen or raloxifene for five years.

Both of these drugs block estrogen. They’re supposed to prevent estrogen-fueled breast tumors. Tamoxifen is more effective than raloxifene. But raloxifene has fewer side effects.

Wonderful choice, right? Nobody wants to use an inferior cancer preventive. But then who would possibly want to take a better preventive, only to put their life at risk?

The numbers show just how terrible this choice is.

By the panel’s estimate, about 24 cases of invasive breast cancer occur in every 1,000 women with high breast cancer risk. If those 1,000 women take one of the drugs for five years, they might prevent between seven and nine breast cancers.

But then, benefits drop off sharply…

Within those 1,000 women, use of the drugs would prompt blood clots in four to seven women, and four would develop uterine cancer.

Those are terrible numbers! They could easily add up to more than 10 fatalities. And it might get even worse. In a 2008 study, tamoxifen sharply increased risk of an aggressive type of breast cancer that doesn’t rely on estrogen receptors. Other tamoxifen side effects include cataracts, depression, and weight gain.

The PSTF recommendation is recklessly dangerous. What’s disturbing is to imagine all the by-the-book doctors out there who will see this and just go with it. No questions asked.

Hopefully their patients WILL ask the right questions and avoid this hazardous attempt at prevention.

Sources:
“Breast Cancer Drugs Urged for Healthy High-Risk Women” Denise Grady, The New York Times, 4/15/13, nytimes.com