Breast cancer screening pamphlets mislead women: All women and women's organisations should tear up the pink ribbons and campaign for honest information (2014)
Authors
Abstract
Why should I have mammography? That question is regularly asked in pamphlets for screening. The answer is also regularly misleading. Women are told what they should do, but without being given the facts necessary to make informed decisions. This form of paternalism has a long tradition. In a campaign poster in the 1980s, the American Cancer Society declared: “If you haven’t had a mammogram, you need more than your breasts examined.” As a result of paternalism and pink ribbon culture, almost all women have a false impression of the benefit of mammography screening. For instance, 98% of women in France, Germany, and the Netherlands overestimated its benefit by a factor of 10, 100, or more, or did not know.1 Most surprisingly, those who frequently consulted their physicians and health pamphlets were slightly worse informed. Russian women gave the most realistic estimates among those in nine European countries studied—not because they have more information at their disposal but because there are fewer misleading pink ribbon pamphlets in Russia.
Bibliographic entry
Gigerenzer, G. (2014). Breast cancer screening pamphlets mislead women: All women and women's organisations should tear up the pink ribbons and campaign for honest information. BMJ, 348:g2636. doi:10.1136/bmj.g2636 (Full text)
Miscellaneous
| Publication year | 2014 | |
|---|---|---|
| Document type: | Article | |
| Publication status: | Published | |
| External URL: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g2636 View | |
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