Evidence of meeting #115 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was task.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
I ask that because we're all experts in something. I'm an expert in adult education. I'm certainly not questioning their qualifications as an individual.
What I am questioning, however, are their qualifications as experts to make decisions about matters outside of their expertise. Would you say that their expertise falls outside of the expertise related to cancer, certainly breast cancer? Please answer yes or no.
12:55 p.m.
Chair, Coalition for Responsible Healthcare Guidelines
Yes, there's something called epistemic trespassing, which is the phenomenon of somebody who's, say, a doctor of geology—and this happened during the pandemic—talking about vaccines. Now, this is definitely not the same case. They are experts in medicine, but they really have no expertise in the areas that they're making national rulings on. They're basically practising specialty medicine out of their fields.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Okay. Thank you.
Yes, that's very troubling.
My last question is for Dr. Seely.
You did research on genetics. Why wasn't it accepted? I still don't understand this. It included over two million women. What was the argument for it not being accepted? I find this shocking.
12:55 p.m.
Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Again, that has to do with methodology. The use of randomized trials always takes precedence over a study as large as 2.7 million women.
It is shocking; I completely agree with you. Those recent studies looked at more modern diagnoses and treatments using more up-to-date technology. This, I think, has to do with a lack of expertise and the lack of knowledge about what screening is and how it functions in Canadian programs. Canadian programs are extremely well run. We monitor the abnormal recall rates and the positive biopsy rates.
All of that was done and shown in this beautiful study, but because we didn't have experts who understood the impact of this, it was downgraded in favour of the randomized trials that were 60 years old.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman
Thank you very much for that.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses. This does conclude our meeting on the breast cancer draft recommendations. On behalf of the committee, I would certainly like to thank all of you for your testimony and for contributing to our work as a committee.
As a reminder for all members, on next Tuesday, June 18, we will be studying the draft letter that will be prepared on this topic using today's testimony. That's next Tuesday. At the next meeting, Thursday, we will be coming back to our red dress report.
Thank you, everyone.
Is everyone in agreement to adjourn?
12:55 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.