Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
I am looking at appendix A, which is a summary of the task force’s findings on the benefits and harms of breast cancer screening. I see a chilling absence of empathy. When you look at their own figures, they show that screening 1,000 people, ages 40 to 49, prevents one breast cancer death, while no screening means two people will die from breast cancer. In other words, the number of people per 1,000 who die from breast cancer would be cut in half. When you think of the number of Canadian women in that age group—not 1,000 Canadian women but 2.5 million—we're talking about saving, just by a rough calculation, over 3,000 lives. That's more than the number of people who died in the World Trade Center attack.
I simply don't understand this chilling absence of empathy, that a task force could put out these recommendations knowing that what they're doing is sentencing 3,000 Canadian women to death.
I thank all of our witnesses for their testimony today.
I want to start with you, Dr. Appavoo.
Does that sound right to you, the number of lives that could be saved if these task force recommendations were simply set aside and we started screening at 40?