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What the Newspapers Ran

Eighteen clippings from Canadian newspapers between 2002 and 2019 show how breast thermography reached the public. The medical objection to it appeared on a front page more than ten years before Health Canada issued its advisory — and the advertising kept running for years afterward.

QuackeryWatch · Bad Devices · Source clippings supplied from Newspapers.com

Every other page in this section documents a machine: what it claims to do, what the evidence says, and what the regulators did. This page documents the delivery system. Before a woman in Midland, Invermere, Welland or Moncton could book a breast thermogram, she generally had to read about it somewhere — and in almost every case, what she read was in her local newspaper.

The clippings below were pulled from Newspapers.com. They span seventeen years, ten provinces' worth of titles from the Vancouver Sun to the Moncton Times-Transcript, and every format a newspaper has to offer: front-page news, wire briefs, health-section features, bylined columns, letters to the editor, display advertising, and a full-page advertorial.

What this page is

A record of published material, nothing more. Every item here appeared in a newspaper available to the public, and is identified by title, date and page so that any reader can pull the same clipping and check it. The businesses and practitioners named below are named because newspapers named them, in print, at the time.

This page makes no assertion that any person or company listed here contravened the Food and Drugs Act, the Medical Devices Regulations, or any provincial statute. Those determinations belong to Health Canada and the provincial regulators, not to this site. Nor does an appearance in a 2006 or 2010 clipping say anything about what any of these businesses do today.

The clippings

Eighteen clippings, 2002–2019, in date order. “Type” distinguishes paid space from editorial space.
Date Publication Type What ran
8 Jun 2002 The Sun Times, Owen Sound ON · p.1 Checked Front page. Public health officials publicly questioned the value of a thermographic breast screening clinic scheduled for a local therapy centre. The area's acting medical officer of health and a University of Toronto breast-disease epidemiologist disputed the claims on the clinic's promotional posters, warning that women paying for the procedure might develop a false sense of security and skip conventional diagnostic tests.
29 Jun 2006 Calgary Herald · p.31 Uncritical Section-front health feature framing thermography as a squeeze-free complement to mammography, built around a Calgary naturopathic doctor and her wellness centre, with a step-by-step how-to sidebar and a price.
22 Jul 2006 Star-Phoenix, Saskatoon SK · p.47 Uncritical The same reporter's feature, redistributed through the chain's news service. This version carried dissent: the president of the Alberta Society of Radiologists said he had seen no significant scientific data supporting it.
24 Jul 2006 The Vancouver Sun · p.17 Uncritical The same feature again, this time headlined on the claim that the technique finds problems eight years before they develop. Named two more B.C. naturopathic doctors offering it and quoted their fees.
11 Feb 2009 The Leader-Post, Regina SK · p.2 Paid ad Display advertisement on a news page for a free evening public seminar at a Regina hotel, titled around early breast cancer screening and risk assessment, presented by a local thermography business.
30 Nov 2010 The Tribune, Welland ON · p.17 Full-page ad A full page of paid space for a Niagara thermography clinic's open house, headlined as pain-free breast screening. Included an argument against mammography, a cancer-cell doubling-time table, and an author panel describing the operator's homeopathic qualifications and past offices in Canadian homeopathic bodies.
6 Jun 2011 The Times-Transcript, Moncton NB · p.D5 Uncritical Life section feature on a mobile screening company that had been running thermography clinics since 2001, touring the country in partnership with alternative health-care providers. The Moncton clinic was held at a day spa.
8 Sep 2011 The Windsor Star · p.11 Checked Letter of the Day from a radiologist at the regional cancer program, responding to the paper's own earlier coverage of a yoga fundraiser that had raised money to buy free thermograms for local women. He noted the technique was not licensed in Canada for breast cancer screening and that no study had shown it worked for early detection.
29 Apr 2012 The Morning Star, Vernon BC · p.B2 Uncritical A bylined “Health Notes” column announcing that breast thermography had arrived in Vernon — written by a naturopathic physician at the clinic offering it, and printed as editorial content in the Life section rather than as advertising.
29 Oct 2012 Waterloo Region Record · p.11 Checked Local feature on a Kitchener thermography clinic whose owner had come to it after her own mastectomy — but headlined on the fact that a local radiologist was not convinced. One month before the federal advisory.
29 Nov 2012 Times Colonist, Victoria BC · p.11 Wire Canadian Press report of the Health Canada advisory: the machines are not approved for breast cancer screening in Canada, the department is not aware of scientific evidence supporting that use, and it is illegal to advertise or sell them for it. Health Canada was working with border services to stop unlicensed devices entering the country and notifying the provinces.
29 Nov 2012 The Globe and Mail · p.69 Wire The same wire story, run as a small brief in the bottom corner of a health page whose main features were beer bellies and endurance running.
30 Nov 2012 The Hamilton Spectator · p.37 Wire The same wire story a day later, headlined on the units not being approved for use.
26 Jul 2013 The Hamilton Spectator · p.4 Checked Original follow-up reporting, eight months after the advisory. A health official warned that the treatment had never been proven to be a benefit; the medical director of a digital thermography clinic operating in Burlington, Guelph, Orillia and mobile sites across Ontario defended it as a valid addition to traditional screening.
4 Mar 2016 The Columbia Valley Pioneer, Invermere BC · p.A10 Uncritical News item announcing a Kelowna company's mobile thermography clinic coming to a local wellness centre, quoting a local naturopathic doctor recommending it as a preventative tool for women and men of nearly any age. No mention of the 2012 advisory.
8 Apr 2016 The Columbia Valley Pioneer · p.A7 Checked The third letter in an exchange the March story set off. A local physician clarified that his objection was to a company selling a test on claims of proven benefit that do not survive scrutiny, and noted that the people producing and selling the images can be trained in an online course of under twenty hours.
19 May 2016 The Mirror, Midland ON · p.18 Advertorial A “Health & Wellness” advertising feature. The lead item, signed by a chiropractor at a local chiropractic and wellness centre, described thermography as a completely safe early warning system, claimed 95 per cent of early stage cancers can be detected when it is combined with clinical examination and mammography, and listed prices of $190 for breast, $285 upper body and $350 full body.
3 Jul 2019 Toronto Star · p.17 Checked A Wall Street Journal investigation, reprinted, on bogus cancer-treatment claims spreading through Facebook and YouTube — including a channel with 125,000 subscribers promoting alternative cancer screenings such as thermography, and the FDA's February 2019 warning against using it in place of mammography.

Three streams, not one

It is tempting to summarise this file as “the press ran the ads without checking.” The clippings do not quite support that, and the truth is more useful. Canadian newspapers handled breast thermography in three distinguishable ways, and the difference between them is the whole story.

1. Paid space, unexamined

Three of the eighteen items are advertising: a seminar ad in Regina in 2009, a full page in Welland in 2010, and an advertorial in Midland in 2016. Nothing in any of them signals that a second opinion was sought, and there is no reason to think one was. Advertising departments do not fact-check copy, and in most newspapers they are not asked to.

The Welland page is the most striking of the three, because it is not simply an ad for a service. It is an argument. It devotes most of a broadsheet page to the case against mammography, complete with a table of cancer-cell doubling times, and presents the clinic's operator through a biographical panel listing homeopathic credentials and offices in Canadian homeopathic organisations. A reader encountering it in the Tuesday paper would have had no way of knowing that the device it promoted was not licensed in Canada for the purpose being advertised.

2. Editorial space that read like paid space

Six items are ordinary journalism that reproduced the vendor's framing more or less intact. The 2006 CanWest feature is the clearest case, and its reach matters: one reporter's piece ran in Calgary in June, Saskatoon in July, and Vancouver in July, reaching three major markets in five weeks. Each version carried the practitioners' claims and their prices. To the papers' credit, two of the three versions also carried a radiologist's scepticism — but it appeared well below the headline, which promised the discovery of problems eight years before they develop.

The Vernon column of April 2012 is the sharpest example of the category, because the line has been erased entirely. It is a health column, in the Life section, under a doctor's byline, announcing that a service has come to town — written by a practitioner at the clinic selling it. Nothing in the presentation tells the reader that the author has a commercial interest in the answer.

3. Journalism that did the check

Six items did what the thesis says nobody did. A Windsor radiologist got a letter of the day. The Waterloo Region Record put a local radiologist's doubt in its own headline. The Hamilton Spectator went back eight months after the advisory and reported that the clinics were still open. The Columbia Valley Pioneer printed a physician's correction and the exchange around it. And the earliest clipping in the file is the strongest of all.

The check existed in 2002

On 8 June 2002, the Owen Sound Sun Times ran the objection on its front page. A thermographic breast screening clinic was scheduled for the following week at a local therapy centre, at a couple of hundred dollars a session. The area's acting medical officer of health, together with a University of Toronto epidemiologist who specialised in breast disease and had roots in the district, wrote to the paper disputing what the promotional posters claimed the scan could do. Their warning was the correct one, and it was the same warning Health Canada would issue: a woman who buys reassurance from a test that cannot deliver it may skip the test that can.

Health Canada's advisory came on 28 November 2012 — ten years and five months later.

That interval is the finding on this page. The medical objection to selling breast thermograms was not obscure, not new, and not hard to obtain. It was available from a regional medical officer of health in 2002, from a cancer-programme radiologist in Windsor in 2011, and from a radiologist in Kitchener in October 2012. Any editor or advertising manager anywhere in the country could have reached the same people by telephone in an afternoon. The information was not missing. It was simply not sought before the space was sold.

One wire story, one day

When the federal advisory finally came, the coverage was real and it was national — and it lasted about forty-eight hours. Three of the clippings here are the same Canadian Press dispatch running on 29 and 30 November 2012 in Victoria, Toronto and Hamilton. The story was accurate and reasonably complete. It reported that the machines were not approved for breast cancer screening in Canada, that the department knew of no scientific evidence supporting that use, that advertising or selling them for it was illegal, that border services had been engaged to stop unlicensed devices entering the country, and that the provinces were being notified.

In the Globe and Mail it occupied a corner brief at the foot of a health page given over to beer bellies and endurance running. That is an editing decision, not a scandal. But it is worth setting beside the full broadsheet page the same device had commanded in Welland two years earlier, in paid space.

The obvious follow-up nobody ran

Not one of these papers appears to have gone back through its own advertising log. The story available on 29 November 2012 to any paper that had carried this advertising was: Health Canada says it is illegal to advertise this for breast cancer screening — and we ran the ads. That story does not appear in this file, and no example of it has been located elsewhere. The Hamilton Spectator's July 2013 follow-up came closest, and it looked outward at the clinics rather than inward at the paper.

And then it kept going

The most useful clippings in the file are the last ones, because they are dated after the advisory rather than before it.

In July 2013, eight months on, a clinic was operating in Burlington, Guelph and Orillia plus mobile sites across Ontario, and its medical director was publicly defending the practice while a health official told the same reporter it had never been proven to be a benefit.

In March 2016, three years and four months after the advisory, a small British Columbia weekly ran a straight news item announcing a mobile thermography clinic's arrival, quoting a naturopathic doctor recommending it for women and men of nearly any age. Health Canada's position is not mentioned anywhere in the piece. The correction came only through the letters column over the following month, from a local physician who had to write twice.

In May 2016, three and a half years after the advisory, an Ontario weekly's health advertising feature led with a chiropractor's account of breast thermography as a completely safe early warning system, with a specific detection-rate figure attached and a price list underneath.

Why the 2016 items matter most

A 2006 feature can be defended as a newspaper covering something new before the regulator had spoken. A 2016 advertising feature cannot. By then Health Canada had published its position twice, three provinces had acted, and a national wire story had run in the papers' own pages. The material was still being sold, still being advertised, and still being printed — in one case in the same province, in a weekly, in paid space that carries the newspaper's own section branding.

What this page does not claim

Verify before publication

Several personal names, business names and figures in these scans are legible but not certain, and a few readings should be confirmed against the originals before this page goes live — in particular the two officials named in the 2002 Owen Sound story, the operator's post-nominals in the 2010 Welland advertisement, the clinic owner's surname in the 2012 Waterloo Region Record story, and the name of the fundraising programme in the 2011 Windsor letter. Where a reading was uncertain, the text above describes the person by role rather than by name.

Corrections and additional clippings are welcome and will be published. Anyone named here who believes the record is inaccurate is invited to write; a correction will be run.

Sources

All eighteen items were retrieved from Newspapers.com and are cited above by publication, date and page number so that any reader can locate the same image. Newspaper text and images remain the copyright of their publishers and are not reproduced here; this page describes and summarises them. Health Canada's advisory of 28 November 2012 and its 2017 restatement are documented separately in the regulatory record.