BMJ: News Exclusive re AgeX Trial
Trial to extend breast screening won’t resume after pandemic.
‘Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Women’s Health, Susan Bewley told The BMJ, “Although covid will be credited with ending AgeX, this trial would not have stopped prematurely with no fanfare were it actually answering a necessary research question that had been through proper channels of peer review and funding.
“This largest randomised controlled trial in history has been criticised for having no statistical plan or oversight at onset, and repeatedly changing protocol, numbers, and endpoints. Four million women have already taken part in this unethical human experiment, without having had their understanding checked and giving their explicit informed consent.”
Bewley has called for an independent inquiry “to learn the lessons of this government funded research, sponsored by the University of Oxford, and approved by the Human Research Authority that rode roughshod over women’s rights for a decade … We need to ask the question: who approved this, and how much did it cost?”’
Elizabeth Mahase
BMJ 2020;370:m3337
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3337
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- NB: Sadly, the breast screening programme has been shown to harm more women than it benefits (Marmot, Independent Review). The harms include overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
See also BMJ – Observations: THE ART OF RISK COMMUNICATION Breast cancer screening pamphlets mislead women All women and women’s organisations should tear up the pink ribbons and campaign for honest information Gerd Gigerenzer director Harding Centerfor Risk Literacy and Centre for Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition, Max Planck Institutefor Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
BMJ2014;348:g2636doi: 10.1136/bmj.g2636(Published25 April 2014) and
Breast Cancer Early Detection by Mammography Screening – Harding Center for Risk Literacy.
Fact Box Images at
https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=gerd+gigerenzer+risk+literacy+fact+box&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQ2LjTibvrAhUFZMAKHfZQBI4QsAR6BAgLEAE&biw=1920&bih=938
Numbers for 1000 women aged 50 years or over who participated in breast screening for 10 years:
Benefits
Without screening: 5 died of breast cancer – With screening: 4 died of breast cancer
Without screening: 21 died from all types of cancer – With screening: 21 dies from all types of cancer
Harms
Without screening: false alarms or biopsies – Without screening: none
With screening: false alarms or biopsies – 100
Numbers with non- progressive cancer who experienced unnecessary partial or complete breast removal
Without screening – None
With screening – 5