To the editor:
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force drew swift and deserved condemnation with its Nov. 16 recommendation for American women to begin having bi-annual mammograms starting at age 50, instead of the time-honored 40.
And more ridiculously, the panel shot down the routine breast self-exams that women have habitually performed for decades, saying that they don't fulfill a useful purpose at any age.
These findings were immediately criticized last week by thousands of breast cancer survivors who were diagnosed long before turning 50, along with furious dissension from most health experts.
These conclusions are the type of pseudo-science that will undoubtedly cause a lot of confusion with many women. Going back over the decades one can easily find many other instances of erroneous data and opinions by various medical boards, from denigrating responsible vitamin use to chiropractic therapy, as well as the occasional disastrous "fast-tracking" of highly trumpeted drugs to market before they've been fully tested.
And these authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration, the American Medical Association and other task forces have been proven wrong over time on numerous occasions.
The important fact is that both the National Cancer Institute (the official federal cancer research agency) and the AMA continue to advise women to maintain their routine screenings after age 40, as well as self exams, in direct conflict with the task force.
Breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer deaths in American women, and for the year 2009 the numbers project to about 192,000 new diagnoses and over 40,000 deaths.
These figures alone demonstrate that, along with the common-sense purpose of early detection, annual or at least bi-annual exams after 40 should be an important part of a woman's "peace of mind" health efforts, much like routine yearly physicals and every-five-year colonoscopies after age 50. And the relatively low cost of t
he typical breast screening (about $100, and usually covered by insurance) makes it a comparative bargain in today's prohibitively expensive medical world.
Furthermore, the idea of women foregoing routine self-exams which they've been schooled to do for over 25 years, a process that takes a minute or two in the shower and obviously does no harm and a lot of good, is patently ludicrous without even consulting doctors or data.
The sad, but expected offshoot of this news is that America's strident anti-Barack Obama Republican conservative wing has already seized on these new suggestions as being examples of what "Obamacare" has in store for all of us down the road, treating this poor advice as a cousin of their "death panels" and "unplug Grandma" scripts.
And this is despite Medicare already stating that no changes in mammogram coverage are going to happen, and both the White House as well as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius immediately refuting the data.
But leave it to Limbaugh and his cronies to use hours of air time in the days following these "conclusions" to intone the horrifying future American women face from universal health care if it passes, tying a task force's controversial findings to that same group having the power to impose actual national policies, which is patently "not how it works."
The GOP and their media have long been masterly in utilizing fear tactics and lies to push their pro-business, anti-human agendas, and the task force has played right into their hands.
William Klessens
Salem, N.H.
