SELLEST OSAST
In this episode of Keeping Abreast, Dr. Jenn Simmons sits down with Ivy Harris, a homeschool mom of four, researcher, and soon-to-be certified homeopath behind the blog Done with Diligence, for part one of a two-part conversation on the hidden risks of mammograms and breast cancer screening. Ivy is not a doctor. She's a mom who decided she wasn't going to walk into her first mammogram without doing her own homework first, and what she found is the reason this episode exists.
It started with one post, Ivy broke down what she'd learned about mammograms into five parts, shared it, and watched it split her audience in half, with some women thanking her and others telling her she was going to get people killed. Dr. Jenn picks up exactly where Ivy left off and does the math no one does at check-in: 40 million screening mammograms a year, and by the numbers in the study Ivy found, the radiation alone works out to tens of thousands of cancers and over a thousand deaths a year.
This is the episode you'll want to send to every woman who's ever been told a mammogram is simply safe, simply necessary, and not worth questioning.
What You'll Learn
- The naming decision behind "mammogram" that Dr. Jenn says was never an accident
- Ionizing radiation is a classified carcinogen, and why radiologists won't apply that logic to their own test
- The cross-country flight radiation comparison doctors use to reassure you, and why it doesn't hold up
- How breast density and size can mean 10x more radiation for one woman than another in the same mammogram
- Why younger breast tissue takes more damage from radiation as screening age keeps getting pushed lower
- Overdiagnosis: the NIH's own number is as high as 1 in 2 women screened
- Why DCIS, diagnosed in 90,000 women a year, has no physical route to become life-threatening breast cancer
- How standard DCIS treatment can raise heart failure and fracture risk higher than the diagnosis itself
- False positives and the 80% benign biopsy rate hiding behind every mammogram callback
- What a 2026 American College of Physicians paper found on mammograms and breast cancer mortality, at every age
- Why decades of mammography have increased mastectomies by 20%, the opposite of what screening promised
- Lead time bias: how a screening test can look life-saving on paper without changing when anyone actually dies
- The UK surgeon forced to resign for telling women the truth about mammogram screening
Episode Timeline:
00:00 Introducing Ivy Harris and Done with Diligence
02:27 Why Ivy researched mammogram safety before her first screening
03:00 Going past the rumors to the actual breast cancer research
04:13 Her viral mammogram post and the backlash that followed
05:32 Standing firm on breast cancer screening controversy
07:39 Radiation risks: why a mammogram is a breast x-ray
09:12 The studies linking mammogram radiation to breast cancer
11:14 How radiation damages younger breast tissue
13:36 The math: 40 million mammograms and radiation-induced cancer deaths
17:59 Overdiagnosis and unnecessary breast cancer treatment
26:14 The train analogy for mammogram overdiagnosis
28:12 How breast cancer actually progresses versus the screening myth
32:29 The real harm of overdiagnosis and overtreatment
34:54 Why mammograms don't reduce all-cause breast cancer mortality
50:15 Lead time bias and misleading screening survival statistics
52:04 Michael Baum, saving breasts, and a Part 2 preview
Resources Mentioned:
American College of Physicians, Annals of Internal Medicine, April 2026: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3424
Guest: Ivy Harris
Where to find her: Done with Diligence & @donewithdiligence
To talk to a member of Dr. Jenn's team and learn more about working with Dr. Jenn visit: https://calendly.com/stephanie-1031/clarity-call
To get your copy of Dr. Jenn's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, visit: https://tinyurl.com/SmartWomansBreastCancerGuide
Connect with Dr. Jenn:
Website: https://www.perfeqtionimaging.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJennSimmons
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjennsimmons/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.jennsimmons
