Thoughts About Boobs [And Cancer, And Politics]

And so it begins. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force published new guidelines on breast cancer screening this week. Guidelines with complete disregard for medical advice from the American Cancer Society, The American Medical Association and the Nation Comprehensive Cancer network. The Wall Street Journal has the whole story and more details, so ladies, defiantly check them out.

What are the new guidelines? Apparently women under the age of 50 should no longer have mammograms, and women 50 and older should only have them every other year. On top of this, physicians should no longer teach women how to examine themselves for any signs of cancer. (Lumps and bumps)

Reasonable questions to ask at this point would be “What is the reasoning behind the new guidelines?” and “Just who is the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that they can be giving this advice?” Well, I can’t tell you too much about the group, other than it gets it’s funding from the federal government. That should be all you need to know to assume that they only have your best interests at heart. But the reasons they give for the reduction of care are contemptible:

The guidelines were formed by weighing benefits of screening compared with the harms of false positives, such as anxiety and unnecessary additional tests and biopsies…

I’ve had cancer. I’ve beaten cancer. I may not know all there is to know about it, but I know that the stress of dealing with an occasional false positive is NOTHING compared to the stress that chemotherapy and radiation treatments will put you through. I’m not ashamed to say I’m still dealing with that stress. And as far as a biopsy is concerned, performing it early at the first signs of a possible cancerous tumor is crucial to saving lives. Better to do the biopsy and have it come back false than to do nothing and learn you’ve developed a form a cancer in it’s later stages.

The author of the story at the WSJ says it, and I’m going to say it here too: It’s kind of strange that this is happening on the heals of the House and Senate ramming through their monster of a health care bill. I smell a rat, and if things continue along this path, people are going to die.

To try and end on a positive, patriotic note, I guess the only thing I can do is suggest offering free breast exams at my house. If enough women are interested, I wouldn’t mind doing my part. Ladies?