Since she is not truly an emergency patient, she is triaged to the back of the line, and other folks, those in immediate distress, get in for treatment ahead of her. She waits on a gurney in a cavernous green hallway. The “chief complaint” on her chart at Grady Memorial Hospital, in Downtown Atlanta, might have set off a wave of nausea in a hospital at a white suburb or almost any place in the civilized world. It reads, “My breast has fallen off. Can you reattach it?” (via Boing Boing) [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia on Apr 24, 2012 - 103 comments

NPR is reporting that the Susan G. Komen foundation is severing it's ties and halting grants to Planned Parenthood, cutting off "hundreds of thousands of dollars", mainly earmarked for breast exams. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress — a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen on Jan 31, 2012 - 313 comments

"I believe the time has come to realise that breast cancer screening programmes can no longer be justified ... I recommend women to do nothing apart from attending a doctor if they notice anything themselves." [more inside]
posted by latkes on Jan 24, 2012 - 52 comments

According to new data released by the CDC yesterday, more Americans are surviving cancer thanks to advances in increased early detection and treatment. CDC analysis shows an unprecedented 20% increase in survival rates between 2001 and 2007, which is nearly a quadruple increase since 1971. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Mar 11, 2011 - 27 comments

Followup to this post: A US District Court has ruled that Myriad Genetic's patents on breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, which allow them to hold exclusive rights to a widely used genetic test for inherited breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility, are invalid. Genomics Law Report analyzes the ruling in two posts. The decision is likely to be challenged in a legal appeal — but if upheld, it could have huge implications for the biotechnology industry. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Mar 31, 2010 - 51 comments

On behalf of medical organizations, universities, & individual patients, pathologists and genetics researchers, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Utah-based Myriad Genetics and the US Patent and Trademark Office. Myriad holds the US patents to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, associated with hereditary causes of breast and ovarian cancers. Their patents guarantee the company the right to prevent anyone else from testing or studying those genes, which the ACLU says is unconstitutional and inhibits researchers from finding treatments and cures. [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 13, 2009 - 64 comments

An important breast cancer test is now unavailable in British Columbia because of the American company which holds the relevant patent. The B.C. Cancer Agency has been forced to stop the tests after legal threats by Utah-based Myriad Genetics Inc., which has a patent on two genes that can signal whether a woman may develop hereditary breast cancer. I think this is a perfect example of why patenting genes is a terrible idea. Via Slashdot.
posted by homunculus on Oct 21, 2002 - 39 comments

Breast exams considered harmful. Some Canadian researchers claim that teaching women to conduct their own breast exams does no good as they are more likely to encounter benign lumps, suffer undue anxiety and endure unnecessary surgery. (An associated article can be found here).

"Many breast tumours are found by women themselves, even in highly screened populations. However, in women regularly performing BSE, many self-detected tumours are found incidentally, not during self-examination. In one study, only 7.6% of women with breast tumours who were practising regular BSE actually detected the tumour by means of self-examination. In addition, tumours developing between screens in some age groups (e.g., 50–69) may be inherently more aggressive and thus may not be influenced by slightly earlier detection with BSE. "

So BSE works for only 7.6%? That's a good enough percentage for me, especially as the costs of BSE campaigns is pretty trivial compared to other public health measure.
posted by maudlin on Jun 26, 2001 - 4 comments