Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank you guys for taking the time to come here.
I think it's pretty clear at this point that Canadians don't trust what you've put out. Canadian women shouldn't trust what you've put out. In fact, most provinces have decided that your guidelines aren't worthwhile and have changed their guidelines on their own.
The biggest comparison to our country is the United States, and they've lowered it to 40. You've completely ignored anything they might have decided as to why they've done that.
Here you've been continually trying to say that the harms from breast cancer screening outweigh some women living. This is incredibly concerning. Effectively, the harms that you've been able to describe to us at this committee are anxiety. Frankly, women can handle anxiety.
I've had to live most of my life—in fact, my entire adult life—without my mom because my mom got breast cancer and died at 49 years old before cancer screening would have allowed her to potentially catch that cancer. She might be here today had she found her cancer before it was at stage 4, when virtually every option was closed to her. She lived 11 months after she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.
I will not accept that anxiety and false positives are somehow the same as women dying.
Just based on rough math, one person will die. That means 400 additional deaths. Your study is saying it's okay because only 400 women will die. I don't know if anyone around this table is okay with an extra 400 women dying because the stress and anxiety are too much.
What do you have to say to these women and the families of these women who are having to now live with that?