The word cancer strikes fear into Americans with good reason. Last year, nearly 1.7 million people in the US were diagnosed with it.
But there is an increasingly loud conversation among some doctors and patients questioning certain diagnoses and the aggressive treatments that often follow.
48-year-old former breast cancer patient, Donna Pinto, is one of them.
“I despise being called a survivor because I’m not. If anything, I’m a survivor of the medical system that lied to me and intimidated me and bullied me.”
We sat down with Pinto on a sunny afternoon in her San Diego home. Surrounded by photos of her hiking mountains and running marathons she prepared organic green smoothies and explained how a routine mammogram led to a diagnosis of DCIS: Ductal Carcinoma In-Situ, or “Stage Zero” breast cancer.