MP Patrick Brown introduces bill embracing breast cancer screening initiatives

October 03, 2011

OTTAWA – MP Patrick Brown introduced a Bill today in The House of Commons titled “Breast Density Awareness Act”. This enactment requires the Government of Canada to encourage the use of existing initiatives in order to increase awareness among women about the implications of heterogeneous or dense breast tissue for breast cancer screening. This will help assist women and health care providers in making well-informed decisions regarding screening.

“In 2011, the Canadian Cancer Society predicts that an estimated 23,400 Canadian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, from which 5,100 will regrettably die” said MP Patrick Brown. “It is my hope that this Bill over time will help reduce those numbers.

Health sectors in other areas of the world are beginning to more aggressively target dense tissue to enable early detection. It is time for Canada to do the same” he added.

With this Bill, Canadians will benefit from increased awareness of the challenges related to breast cancer screening for women with heterogeneous or dense breast tissue. Breast cancer screening programs in Canada that exist in most provinces and territories are invaluable tools in the early detection of breast cancer.

While respecting the jurisdictions as well as separate entities, the Government of Canada must encourage the use of existing programs and other initiatives that are currently supported by those entities in order to increase awareness.

“It is more challenging to detect breast cancer in women who have heterogeneous or dense breast tissue because both the cancer and dense breast tissue appear white on mammograms” said MP Brown “obviously this makes detection more difficult and this bill will target screening towards this challenging area.”

MP Brown was slotted third to introduce his Private Members Bill, meaning that debate will likely fall two weeks from now and has a very strong chance of passing through the House and Senate this session.