Your questions are somewhat rhetorical and rather unfair. Of course no man can can demonstrate giving birth to an audience and no woman should be FORCED to either. It’s the forcing that is wrong and I think you basically agree with me here, having written the word in capitals. Women should be asked politely and without any undue pressure if they would CONSENT to giving a demonstration and the CHOICE should be theirs. As an aside, let me mention that I booked my last (and first) prostate check with a male urologist but when I went for the appointment the guy was caught up with an emergency and his female partner was acting in locum. She offered me the option to make an appointment with the man or go ahead with her. The fact that I opted for the latter is irrelevant. Her sensitive offer is what’s important here – and that’s the way it should be. Do I know you get the result there and then? No, I don’t. (Of the three women I know well who had mammograms, two were given an immediate all-clear and one was was told of the need for further investigation which subsequently proved negative.) Your point? The hard truth is that shit happens and we deal with it. Fortunately, shit doesn’t happen all that often (and in the medical sense it happens far more frequently to men, you know, but we tend to deal with better). In another part of your blog you informed us about how easy it was for a woman to deal with the lewd pawings of (depraved) men invading their privacy. You seem to have changed your tune now. Now a common medical procedure has become an ‘ordeal’. Again, you shouldn’t have colleagues snooping – they should be sensitive – and that’s where the real problem is. On that, I think we can agree.

[Daphne – I don’t know what she used, but it was at a private clinic.]

On the other hand, mammogramm results should not be given there and then – they take time to examine and as I said earlier, it is recommended that at least two radiologist view to image – it can be very subjective – this is at least what was recently presented by Dr Salvina Zrinzo during a breast cancer symposium held a couple of weeks ago.

[Daphne – Dr Zrinzo checked mine without suggesting that they be checked by somebody else, and gave me the result there and then.]

What’s so embarrassing about having your boobs checked? It’s not like it’s going to be video-taped and posted on YouTube. Your cow remark is also out of line – nobody’s going to milk you is she?

I would have thought that in your mid forties and after having had three children you’d show more maturity in this case.

Arnoldino’s idea is pretty batty, I agree, but for logistical reasons – a mobile breast-screening clinic would cost a fortune and doesn’t make economical sense when the fixed clinic can be reached with (relative) ease.

[Daphne – No, Tim – the idea is batty because women don’t like having their privacy invaded. We are FORCED to have our privacy invaded – how many men have lain there legs akimbo up in the air with a baby popping out when 10 medical students crowd into the room for a live demonstration, and doctors, nurses and orderlies come and go? – but we don’t like it. This may come as a surprise to you, but most women consider these things to be a private matter, and they’re damned if they’re going to let the entire office know when they’re taking a mammogram. Besides, do you know that you get the result there and then? What happens to the woman who gets bad news? Does she walk back into the office and get back to work, taking care to show no emotion? Does she make an attention-getting scene? Does she ask for the afternoon off so that the rest of the office knows she’s had bad news? Do the women who get the all-clear come back smiling with their thumbs up? It’s precisely because I DO take a mature approach, having been through it myself, and not being an insensitive man, that I know how terrible those frozen minutes are for a woman when the radiologist is going over her scans and pauses for just that fraction of a second. Yes, that’s really the kind of thing you need to deal with in the middle of a working day, with all your colleagues snooping and a desk piled high waiting. Have you ever wondered why so many women prefer to have a girlfriend, their mother or their sister with them during this ordeal, rather than some wise-cracking man?]

[Daphne – How would you know about that, not being a woman? Oh I forget, don’t just tell women what they should do, they also tell them how they should feel.]

[Daphne – There are two issues: even if there were enough high-risk-category women in the workplace, which is not the case, it still would not work because it places women in an embarrassing position. How would men feel if they were asked to pop along in their lunch-break for a prostate-cancer check at the mobile unit waiting outside the office (if there were such a thing)? Just because you’ve got breasts it doesn’t mean you have to be treated like a cow. If married men and run-around-Joes don’t know how women think, just imagine how much less confirmed bachelors know.]

The Dr Mercola site has to be taken with more than a pinch of salt (more likely a tablespoonful).

The only scientifically proven screening technology for breast cancer is mammography, with either two radiologists examining the x-ray pictures or else on radiologist utilising a computer aided identification software.

The actual radiation dose is very low, but due to the fact that the x-rays are of the low energy type, their potential risk per dose is higher than normal x-rays (by around a factor of 2). This, and the fact that the risk of breast cancer is higher in postmenopausal women, are the reasons why breast cancer screening by mammography is recommended to be initiated after the age of 50 years or so, with mammograms taken once every 2 to 3 years. Such a routine examinations have a minor if any increase risk of breast cancer.

Exactly. If you carry out a Google search for “safety of mammograms” you will find out that Ms. Grech got her information from a few “natural health” sites, including Dr. Mercola’s. Many people are taking this “natural health” business too far. When it comes to serious conditions, the natural way will not take one far – unless, that is, one chooses to let nature take its course, resulting in an inevitable, “natural” death.

I’m sure you’ve seen this thing millions of times over… A group of researchers rubbishing a technique/instrument only to propose a better alternative a few weeks/months later.

Of course, the public’s gullibility and the press’s general “ignorance” help them no end …