<p>I love the way the CBS report says, “Cervical cancer is usually entirely curable when detected early through normal Pap screenings.” </p>
<p>The standard treatment for the majority of cervical cancers is a radical hysterectomy. But hey, our young women don’t need those silly reproductive organs, do they?</p>
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And what was the outcome?</p>
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<p>Not to live, no…</p>
<p>I would imagine that an inability to conceive is probably low on the list of concerns for someone facing a deadly cancer. Also, that quote probably is mostly referring to cervical dysplasia (or CIN), which is the premalignant lesion that would hopefully be detected by PAP smear and can usually be removed without hysterectomy.</p>
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<p>As a cancer survivor, and as someone who’s had a cone biopsy, I’m in full agreement. I was simply disturbed by the blitheness with which the “Oh, no big deal, we’ll just cure 'em after they have it” solution was thrown out.</p>
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<p>I agree that that’s probably what they were referring to, but the way they stated it was misleading. When most people hear “cancer” they don’t think of pre-cancerous lesions.</p>
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<p>^^^^I recently received a newsletter for nurses which included an article called “Cancer? Not!”</p>
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<p>Re: #225</p>
<p>Is this in reference to prostate cancer?</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, not specifically. I’d give a link, but it requires registration, and I don’t like to do that to CC members.</p>
<p>Prostate cancer is one of the more well known examples of overtreatment.</p>
<p>What other specific cancers, if any, were mentioned?</p>
<p>Or was it more like situations where cancer screenings are still requested even for people whose remaining life expectancy (based on their health records) is less than the time it would take those cancers to kill them?</p>
<p>You are right on all counts above, ucb.</p>
<p>In addition to prostate, other tumors which are “overidentified” and subsequently overtreated include those in the breast, lung, thyroid and skin. “Indolent” tumors are generally cured with treatment, but also would likely be perfectly fine if left alone.</p>
<p>The article refers back to a NCI report which also is similar to the article but does include the caveat that finding these very early cell changes has proven to deliver amazing reductions in mortality from cervical cancer and colon cancer, in effect preventing cancer altogether when lesions are removed. But note that removing these particular lesions is really THE TREATMENT, vs. putting someone through major surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, which all have their own risks and adverse effects for indolent tumors which likely would have benefited from a watch and wait tactic.</p>
<p>Heard a report today on the radio that more than 2 million Americans are infected with “superbugs” each year, and about 23,000 of them die!</p>
<p>I was going to report on this thread that I had 2 would-be Great Aunts who died young as the result of diseases we now have vaccines for (one was meningitis, not sure about the other). This was around 1910. Flash forward 100 years or so and I have lost 2 Aunts to MRSA. It seems strangely… symmetrical. 1 Aunt had just been visiting her husband in the hospital after he had had routine prostate cancer surgery and she picked it up somehow. The other Aunt had just moved into assisted living. </p>
<p>Now I’m hearing Gilda Radner in my head saying, “it’s always something”.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/09/16/superbugs_infect_more_than_2_million_in_us_each_year_says_cdc_report.html[/url]”>http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/09/16/superbugs_infect_more_than_2_million_in_us_each_year_says_cdc_report.html</a></p>
<p>CTTC- there was a settlement just before the trial would have started. I don’t know the details, it seemed impolite to ask.</p>
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<p>True… snipping off a colon polyp while the colonscope is in there anyway is a lot less of an additional invasiveness than doing a prostate biopsy in response to a high PSA reading, or doing any of the various prostate cancer treatments if the prostate biopsy shows something a bit unusual.</p>
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<p>Only if they carry the disease themselves.</p>
<p>It’s ridiculous to suggest that perfectly healthy people - not ill - who do not happen to be vaccinated a particular childhood illness are walking petri dishes by their very existence.</p>
<p>It does not work that way. Meanwhile vaccinated and overvaccinated people are getting chicken pox and measles more than once. Now that is a concern.</p>
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<p>Many infectious diseases are contagious before obvious symptoms occur. So the seemingly healthy person may be spreading an infectious disease like measles, chicken pox, etc. before s/he gets the obvious symptoms like rash, fever, etc…</p>
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<p>One does not get chicken pox or measles twice, regardless of whether one is unvaccinated or did not seroconvert to immunity after vaccination. However, note that measles and German measles are different, and chicken pox may be followed by shingles.</p>
<p>My daughter did get chicken pox twice. She got it around a year old, not many, but confirmed by the doctor so we never got the vaccine. They she got it again, full blown at 8.</p>
<p>Yep, my niece also had chickenpox twice. Both times confirmed by doctors.</p>
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<p>This is what the National Institute of Health has to say. Those who get it twice are not ‘vaccinated’ or ‘overvaccinated’ – in fact, I expect that pretty much NONE of them have been vaccinated and had the recommended boosters. More pseudo-science…</p>
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<p>As someone else pointed out, generally you don’t know you are ill when you first start spreading a given disease. And as mentioned further up in the thread, if someone is not vaccinated for a particular childhood disease and could be, they are freeloading on the rest of us who do vaccinate – if they haven’t had these diseases (yet), it is partly because the rest of us took the expense and teeny-tiny risk protect our kids and try to knock the disease out of our society as a whole so it is more difficult for the un-vaccinated to be exposed.</p>
<p>A few months ago I attended a baby shower. The next day I broke out in big itchy bumps. I was horrified to think that it might be something viral and I might have infected one of the pregnant woman at the event or the newborn who attended with his mother.</p>
<p>Luckily I was cleared by a dermatologist who declared it an allergic reaction to blue food dye (it’s a boy!)</p>
<p>The point, as it related to this conversation, is that if it had been a virus I could have made a lot of very vulnerable people sick and there wouldn’t have been any way to make it better.</p>
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<p>In addition to people who do not yet realize that they are ill, for some diseases there may be people with mild symptoms who do not realize that they have anything more than a nameless “bug” but who can spread a dangerous disease to others.</p>
<p>I saw HPV vaccine mentioned. How do you all feel about it? I’m not anti vax but this one still concerns me. My daughter has had the first dose and has two more to go. Someone posted a link about one of the leading researchers of this vaccine speaking out. What is her motivation for doing that?</p>