It's That (Pink) Month Again

Thank you, I'm so aware of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In Walmart yesterday, I experienced my annual annoyance at pink-themed merchandise--including the extra bonus this year of pink-packaged Halloween candy for the kiddies. The mind boggles. Never to early to let them know that the world is dangerous and cancer could strike at any moment. And be sure to go home and tell Mommy (and Daddy too!) to go get a mammogram!

Oh, wait. This is on the heels of the ACS waffle-fest yesterday about how mammograms really might not be that great as a screening tool because you could get an aggressive tumor the day after you have your negative mammogram result.

What? After a generation of being told that "early diagnosis saves lives," now we are being told by the scientists that it ain't so.

Seems that while breast cancer diagnoses are through the roof, not all of the tumors found are of "the type that will kill you," (at least not right away?) and the ones that will kill quickly aren't being diagnosed fast enough to save you. And the survival rates aren't improving, despite all the added screenings and surgeries.

Are women being thrown under the bus here? Is this just a precursor to the coming nightmare of supposed "universal" health care (which isn't really health care, it's just super-regulating our health insurance, which is not the same thing at all).

So they start the debunking process of the only relatively cheap, wide-range screening tool we have, working to destroy the confidence in the efficacy of the mammogram, leading to lowering the number of women being screened (which isn't all that high to begin with, despite all the Pink Snickers bars!), which will fit right in with the government's future inevitability of rationing care based on the cost versus the value of a middle-aged woman's life to society at large.

Grumble, grumble.

In Great Britain (that model of efficiency that Congress points to as an example of what we should have here), women over the age of 50 who have the same Stage I-C breast cancer I had are being sent home without treatment and told to get their affairs in order. In other words, "You're not worth saving."

I thought my initial diagnosis meant certain death, but after being educated for the last 2 years in an up-close-and-personal way, I am now looking forward to being an old lady someday.

There's something really insane about flogging people to "be aware," while telling them quietly that it may not matter anyway, because the test isn't all that great after all. And, by the way, we're getting you prepared for when we tell you that you aren't worth treating.

And, I am NOT handing out pink candy to children, that's a grumpy "Roger" for sure.