Not so pretty in pink.

• Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Position: Flip Side - Mammography and breast cancer

Welcome to the Women's Movement 2.0. Instead of the proud female symbol--a circle on top of a cross--we have a droopy ribbon. Instead of embracing the full spectrum of human colors--black, brown, red, yellow, and white--we stick to princess pink. While we used to march in protest against sexist laws and practices, now we race or walk "for the cure." And while we once sought full "consciousness" of all that oppresses us, now we're content to achieve "awareness," which has come to mean one thing--dutifully baring our breasts for the annual mammogram.

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Routine older mammographic screening of women under fifty may not reduce breast cancer mortality in that group, nor do older women necessarily need an annual mammogram. In fact, the whole dogma about "early detection" is shaky, as Dr. Susan Love reminds us: The idea has been to catch cancers early, when they're still small, but some tiny cancers are viciously aggressive, and some large ones aren't going anywhere.

One response to the new breast cancer screening guidelines has been that numbers don't matter--only individuals do--and if just one life is saved, that's good enough.

So OK, let me cite my own individual experience. In 2000, at the age of fifty-nine, I was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer on the basis of one dubious mammogram followed by a really bad one, followed by a biopsy. Maybe I should be grateful that the cancer was detected in time, but the truth is, I'm not sure whether these mammograms detected the tumor or, along with many earlier ones, contributed to it. One known environmental cause of breast cancer is radiation, in amounts easily accumulated through regular mammography.

I had long ago made the decision not to spend my golden years undergoing cancer surveillance, but I wanted to get my Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) prescription renewed, and the nurse practitioner wouldn't do that without a fresh mammogram.

As for the HRT, I was taking it because I had been convinced, by the prevailing medical propaganda, that HRT helps prevent heart disease and Alzheimer's. In 2002, we found out that HRT is itself a risk factor for breast cancer (as well as being ineffective at...