This is an awful thing to win!

(Adam) But some cancers start growing,

but then stop before they kill you.

And other cancers

grow so slowly,

they would never

have the chance to kill you.

Finally, there's the kind of cancer you were thinking of.

The kind you hope

to catch early.

Yeah, that one hasn't reached the finish line yet.

A mammogram could stop it in time.

It might.

(beep)

The problem is mammograms can't tell the difference

between these types of cancer.

Oh, I can't tell you apart.

You all look deadly to me.

I'm gonna treat

you all the same.

You're so sexy when you detect cancer.

That is less helpful than I thought.

But if there's even a tiny chance it'll save my life,

it does seem worth it for a harmless test.

Unfortunately, mammograms aren't harmless.

(Joann) There's a chance the x-ray will

show something suspicious

when the woman

doesn't even have cancer.

That's called a false positive.

This happens to about one out of ten women,

and it can be very stressful.

And the more often you get mammograms,

the more likely you are to get a false positive.

Over half of women in the US who receive annual mammograms

will experience a false positive within a decade.

(Rachel)

But, okay, sometimes they do find cancer, right?

The screening could just find one of those harmless cancers

that would never kill you.

(Joann)

That's what we call

over diagnosis.

Estimates are that about

one in five cancers

might be overdiagnosed.

(Rachel)

That's really high.

(Adam) Consider the emotional

and psychological stress

of thinking you have a deadly disease

when you don't.

Or having to tell your loved ones.

Those are real harms.

(Joann)

And over diagnosis can lead to overtreatment.

Since mammograms can't tell the difference between these types

of cancers, we recommend serious treatments for all of them.

And that can result in women getting treatments

they don't need.

(Adam)

Some, like, chemotherapy,

radiation therapy,

and mastectomy

take a serious toll on the body.

(Rachel)

So, you're telling me I could have that lazy cancer

that would never have hurt me, but still be told to get chemo?

(Adam) Yeah, it's entirely possible.

(Rachel) Holy crow.

Taken together, given the false positives, overdiagnosis,

overtreatment, instead of rushing in to get screening,

I want women to weigh all of the data

and make an informed choice.

Prostate and thyroid cancer screenings

have the same issue, by the way.

You know, I used to get my prostate checked