The recent recommendations from the 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force have set off a firestorm of protest.
Listening to the nightly news, I had the impression that a left-wing, Obama-appointed-to-support-health-care-reform task force from the dark side has conspired to murder women for the sole purpose of saving medical dollars.
But the media, and the doctors screaming the loudest, and the politicians with their own agendas don’t tell all of the truth, and what we don’t know about mammograms can maim us.
So, let’s step back from the emotion, and take a logical look at the allegations.
First, this U.S. Preventive Services Task Force was created in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was president. It is an INDEPENDENT panel of private-sector experts in prevention and primary care that conducts “rigorous, impartial assessments of the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of a broad range of clinical preventive services, including screening, counseling, and preventive medications. Its recommendations are considered the ‘gold standard’ for clinical preventive services.”
In other words, these are doctors and scientists whose income doesn’t depend on any particular decision they make. (I taught my students always to follow the money trail.)
And, they’re not the only group counseling fewer mammograms. A number of women’s health organizations, including Our Bodies Ourselves, the National Women’s Health Network, and Breast Cancer Action for years have warned that regular mammograms do not necessarily decrease a woman’s risk of death.
And, the recommendations are in line with the World Health Organization guidelines. Remember, our country spends more on health care with worse results than any of the countries in line with WHO.
Second, as I wrote in an earlier post, mammograms for women under 50 are as likely to CAUSE as to prevent a cancer death from the continued exposure to x-ray radiation. In addition, pre-menopausal women have greater breast density that makes false positives upwards of 50%. When these false positives lead to biopsy (which, in itself, can release an spread a cancer that may otherwise have remained contained), disfiguring surgery, radiation and chemotherapy treatments (that cause their own serious and deadly problems), not to mention the unimaginable stress of all of the above, women are much better off without mammograms.
Third, it’s far more expensive for women to undergo biopsy, surgery, reconstruction, and counseling than it is to provide mammograms, so the idea that reducing the number of mammograms is a cost-saving measure is illogical.
When a glitch in my medical insurance coverage sent me to a new doctor, she diagnosed a shadow on a mammogram as possible cancer and recommended immediate biopsy. (She also recommended a “preventive hysterectomy because of family history of vaginal cancer.) I was skeptical. Two weeks later, I was back with my original doctor who said it was a blocked duct and required no invasive diagnostic. (And that I certainly didn’t need a hysterectomy.)
Thirty years later, I’m still fine, whole, and thankful.
Blessings,
Judy
P.S. I do intend to continue self-exams. Statistically, they may also lead to false positives, but my wellness philosophy is all about knowing my own body.
