Docs now recommended less smearing

By Dr. William Campbell Douglass on 12/25/2009

Seems like this holiday season, heaping helpings of humble pie are being served throughout the medical community.

After backing away from mammograms and preparing to do the same on prostate cancer screenings, the mainstream is now starting to acknowledge that we're also giving far too many Pap smears, the tests used to detect potentially cancerous lesions in the cervix.

But instead of coming out and admitting that these tests are useless, pointless, meaningless, stressful, inaccurate and intrusive for most young women… they're just recommending less frequent tests.

Please. Who are they really protecting? It's certainly not the young women.

Until now, they've advocated Pap smears annually in women three years after they've first had sex, or any woman over the age of 21.

Now, they're saying these women should have the tests every other year. And once you hit 30, you can reduce the frequency to every three years.

Somewhere, a gynecologist is crying - and probably wondering how he's going to pay for that new swimming pool now. After all, Pap smears have been a reliable source of steady income for years - and it's about to be slashed.

But the research doesn't lie, and it all points in the same direction. Just like prostate cancer screenings in men and mammograms in women, Pap smears have resulted in the over- treatment of women, especially young women, and in many cases have hurt them.

Researchers now believe that in most cases, the lesions detected by Pap smears heal on their own. And in some cases, treating them can actually make the condition worse. Early treatment has also been linked to premature births, even years later.

Here's how widespread the Pap scam is: For years, doctors routinely gave Pap smears to women who had their cervices removed during hysterectomies. Routinely.

That's right… they were testing these women - nearly 70 percent of them - for cancer in a part of the anatomy they no longer had!

That's not safety. That's not even ignorance or stupidity. That's pure, unadulterated greed.

And sadly, that's the heart of modern medicine - exposed for everyone to see.