Self- Breast Examinations

Personally and professionally, the new recommendations issued by the AHRQ at http://www.ahrq.gov/CLINIC/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm cause me concern.

Approximately eight years ago, I was attending the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting in Toronto. While there, the headlines in the Toronto paper extolled the government's new policy of dissuading women from doing self-breast exams.

It seemed to me, at the time, that the only reason for this decision was to reduce healthcare costs by reducing costs for mammograms and biopsies, while sacrificing the possibility of early detection of breast cancer.

It now appears the US Government has taken this a step further by not only dissuading self-breast examinations but also by recommending the end to mammography screening in women under 50 years old. Having been indoctrinated with the importance of self-breast examinations in medical school, and dealt with patients who found breast lumps that eventually turned out to be malignant; I believe self-breast exams are critically important for every woman, no matter how old. You can find some important, and easy to understand statistics on breast cancer rates here. Thank you to Imaginis for providing this information to the public.

I have never seen any medical argument against self-examination as not being one valid way for early detection of breast cancer unless it was ultimately driven by cost saving. In fact, if women do their own examinations, it is likely they will detect a change much earlier than a doctor might at a yearly physical.

As a researcher in breast cancer detection and imaging, I worry that this recommendation is only the tip of the iceberg as the US government takes control of our healthcare.

GetSocial

The Beginning

Social media is growing in popularity. I have been thinking of joining the craze for some time now, but due to perceived restrictions and general negativity about the Pharmaceutical industry, I have been hesitant. I now believe, however, that many of the Social Media restrictions placed on the industry have been self-imposed, and have decided to embark on a social media journey.

The hesitancy by our industry to dip our toes into the frigid waters of social media is understandable; especially because there have been little to no guidelines issued by the FDA in regards to what can or cannot be said. In addition, it can be a cold, crazy ocean out there with sharks waiting to eat you up at the slightest wrong move. Not to mention the millions of little fish that could be lead astray should the information you put out there be misinformed or worse- wrong all together. If the responsibility to the rest of the world, less informed about the industry of drug development, were not enough to keep you out of the water, the sharks definitely are.

Our industry is so used to strong guidance that the idea of embarking on unmarked, vastness of water that is social media is, in a way, scary. Granted, the FDA is now beginning to consider anchoring some buoys in some of the bays and coves with their hearing planned for mid-November, but with social media, even today, at the beginning of the same month, that is a long span of time. Social media does not have "hours" or reside only in one time zone. It is constant, practically omnipresent, in the modern world.

The hearing is scheduled to take place about 17,280 minutes from posting this blog. With 1,668,870,408 people with access to the internet, that is 28,838,080,650,240 people-minutes for someone to say something bad about your company or report an "Adverse Event." Those numbers can be really scary for a CEO like me, who just wants to protect his company and its reputation; ensure that the people that work for me can stay employed; and uphold social and personal values.

I have come to the realization that the conversation that I and other people in this industry have been avoiding is taking place, whether we are present or not. By not participating in the conversation we are being seen by those in the conversation as stuck up and unwilling to take part, or worse, secretive, greedy and dishonest. That is not what I am, nor my company.

Those with understanding in the industry need to be available to those without. In this way, we can ensure that the information out there is indeed valid and relevant. When the H1N1 virus first became the media firestorm that it now is, many misinformed individuals posted that you could get the "swine" flu from pigs (and other misnomers,) causing a great deal of confusion and a huge hit for the pig farmers. The greater travesty is that many still believe this. If more qualified individuals were present in the social media scene, perhaps many of these kinds of misunderstandings could be avoided.

So I will be here, with some friends as guest bloggers. First on Blogger, and then moving to our own URL, once my designer gets it up and running. I will post and comment on subjects I find relevant and be reading your blogs, collecting and distributing information that I hope you will find useful.