aw, thanks everyone for your concern

There are about eight different cans of worms I really don't want to open here - but as you may have gathered from my OP, I already opened one of them just by having a mammo, so I'm steadily getting sucked into the maw of the medical-industrial complex. But there are studies published in respectable peer-reviewed journals that support my position. According to the surgeon, the only thing that my mammo is suspicious for is DCIS, and there is plenty of literature to suggest that DCIS is massively over-diagnosed and over-treated. Neither the diagnosis nor the treatment is benign (in the general sense of that word).

Numerically there aren't a LOT of studies - but then, as the recent health news showed, there weren't a lot of the studies that demonstrated antidepressants' inefficacy that got published, either. (Unlike prostate cancer, there are NO studies I've found that actually compare watchful waiting against aggressive treatment for DCIS - only comparing one treatment against another.)

But the point is that I don't really want to do this against medical advice. I know those doctors are out there, and I really want to talk to one of them and hear their advice on my individual situation before I jump any further into the meat grinder.

Maybe I can just track down one of those researchers and maybe they might know of a like-minded colleague in my area.