To inform or to promote, one has to choose. The INCa's conflict of interest

The INCa openly expresses its determination to promote breast cancer screening at all costs, even if it means deliberately withholding information from women and censoring the media if they want to report on it.

This attitude is not really surprising. When the legislator created the INCa and defined its role (article L1415-2 of the Public Health Code), 2 contradictory missions were assigned : to inform (paragraph 3) and to promote screening (paragraph 6).

Informing about screening means making accessible all available scientific information, without exception, whether it concerns the benefits or the risks of screening.
Informing also means providing information without taking a position. Claiming that screening is beneficial is not information, it is promotion of screening. Similarly, saying that screening is useless or harmful is not informing but rather promotes screening refusal.

Promoting screening is completely the opposite. It is an attempt to influence the decision to participate in screening. And even if it means hiding or minimizing the data that do not support screening.

There is a total incompatibility between informing and promoting.
When the INCa promotes screening while claiming to be the guarantor of quality information, it creates a conflict of interest.
This is regrettable but in a way unavoidable as a consequence of incompatible missions attributed to INCa by the legislator.
Above all, it makes it absolutely necessary to have other sources of information, independent of INCa.

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Dernière mise à jour le 12/09/2021