New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines

It's a bullshit change, period. It sounds like the health care industry made up the rule so they wouldn't keep having to pay money to doctors for mammograms and women who have questions. My wife found her tumor via self-exam and was 30 years old when she was diagnosed. So I guess if we stuck to the new rules, they wouldn't have to worry about her, because she'd probably be dead by now. And I can give you hundreds of thousands of people who have been diagnosed well before the age of 50, let alone 40.

And so much for pushing the agenda to improve healthcare costs later by improving your health now. A friend's wife just had a double mastectomy to remove her tumors, and the doctor said if they had caught it just 6 months earlier, she probably could have had a lumpectomy (to just remove the tumor) instead. It's a change made by a bunch of people who obviously are either in someone's pocket, or have never dealt with breast cancer before. Fuck them. I hope they all get rectal cancer.

Lastly, for you conspiracy theorists out there, I find it very interesting that this recommended change comes just prior to a Universal Healthcare option being offered by the government possibly being implemented.

I think the changes are complete horseshit. I fall right into the category, even though my family isn't at high risk - but I'm 46, and fuck them, I want my annual screening. This is going to be of no comfort to me or my family if something happens because someone else says I can't get a mammogram.

And here's one other thing - my ex-sister in law is currently battling breast cancer. They discovered it after she'd been in a bad car accident, and the airbag hit her really hard in the chest. They were checking her out to make sure she didn't have any broken bones, etc. and discovered the cancer. So - yeah, fantastic - maybe all women over 40 should just get into fucking car accidents to make sure we don't have breast cancer. It's ridiculous.

I'm not one to generally engage in slippery slope-type arguments, but I imagine this kind of scaling back on the preventive care side of things is only going to increase. The thinking (completely bass ackwards though it may be) is that they have to cut costs wherever they can in order to fund the new influx of reactive-care issues they're going to see under a universal program.

Like I said, completely reactionary and idiotic, but there you go.

This is a joke, My aunt was diagnosed at age 35. If a lump is found regardless of age, a test should be done. This kind of rationing is only going to get worse.

Welcome to today's America--reactionary and idiotic.

Well, this thread's pretty reactionary, and like most places fuming with outrage that completely ignores the actual language of the Task Force or the medicial and scientific history on the subject. Here's from my friend, a GP (who, to place him politically, is a self-described socialist who's been crowing for a single-payer system long before it was hip):

And there ARE risks to screenings at younger ages. The last two paragraphs in Kate's link spell them out well. People who have had breast cancer in their lives or loved ones' will have very strong emotions on the matter, but the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data," which is all that these recommendations -- to make an informed decision with one's physicians whether to begin screening before 50 instead of automatically screening at 40 -- are based on. On a similar subject, google up PSA test/prostate cancer for an almost exact parallel discussion, but for men.

ETA: He got back to me when I was asking about some other stats he'd included that didn't sound right: