Thank you, Madam Chair.
So much intelligence today! We often hear highly intelligent things from witnesses appearing before this committee, but today you are all truly very inspiring. Thank you for being here and for your testimony.
I am going to try to speak slowly so the interpreters are able to convey my thoughts to you well.
To begin, I have to tell you that I have a personal experience that I will not recount here, but my colleagues are aware of it. Among my family and friends, I also have women who had to have mastectomies in their thirties. I can confirm that you are telling the truth when you say that more and more young women are facing the problem of breast cancer. Ms. Roberts cited the example earlier where cancer is diagnosed in one breast but the other is healthy. Sometimes, the person might nonetheless decide to have the second breast removed as well. We can see how very difficult these situations are.
I was surprised by something I heard this morning and I had seen in my reading, which is the talk about harms caused by early detection. I am flabbergasted. Personally, I started having mammograms when I was a young woman, which makes for a few years now. How can anyone talk about harm in screening? Explain that to me. I do not understand how anyone can reach that conclusion.
Dr. Appavoo, what are the disadvantages or harms associated with early screening? I cannot believe that the disadvantages or harms come down to simply getting telephone calls to tell us to go and get tests done or redone. For myself, I was quite happy that they called me back and they insisted.
What, then, are these harms that the task force is taking into consideration?