No one said it was a scam.

There is a measure of hysteria involved, in my opinion. It's partly the way women do things--many of us get on a bandwagon without much critical thinking. I'm guilty as the next woman in certain aspects. Add in the hyper-marketing of the color pink, and it's almost as if they would like you to think breast cancer is lurking in every breast, waiting to strike the innocent and unscanned. Just the fact that you've suggested that someone called it a scam speaks to the kind of rubbing a person can get for deviating from the official message.

The truth is that heart disease kills six times more women than breast cancer. I'm betting the American Heart Association would LOVE to have the fundraising power of the breast cancer community.

What I am calling for is critical thinking and an informed perspective on the issue for every woman. Not blind trust. Included in that informed perspective should be the real horrors of breast cancer treatment and outcomes, but that should not blind us to the very real facts about the risks of the scanning and treatment, like the ones posted by Oakleaf.

Oh, the other thing I wanted to add: How do you know that someone like myself or Oakleaf, who seem to question the conventional thinking has not experienced breast cancer in a very real and personal way? Just because we had the same experience, doesn't mean we came to the same conclusion.

Karen