Cancer screening guidelines for women pulled a Palin this week. They're ``going rogue'' -- just like the title of the irrepressible vice presidential nominee's new book.

After urging women for years to start getting annual mammograms at age 40, a government advisory panel said this week to wait until 50 and get tested every two years.

As someone with a dear cousin and two friends diagnosed with breast cancer in their 30s and 40s, the recommendations were as disconcerting as seeing the three-day-weekend-loving Gov. Charlie Crist buried in paperwork on a Friday. Statistics are ice cold compared to the value of our loved ones.

But the recommendations couldn't have come at a better time for critics of healthcare reform. Republicans seized on the guidelines as evidence of President Barack Obama's plans to ration care.

``If you want to get a picture of where we're going with this new healthcare proposal, if you want to know what the future is for how the government and your insurance company is going to view your healthcare, just take a look at this recommendation,'' Florida Sen. George LeMieux said in Washington on Thursday.

CONSPIRACY THEORY

No matter that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force was appointed under the administration of former President George W. Bush. We are living in a crazy, conspiracy-stoked world in which a majority of Republicans think floundering housing group ACORN stole the 2008 election, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling. And Crist's rival for the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio, won't affirm that President Obama is a U.S. citizen.

Meanwhile, women are starting to wonder if their healthcare is under siege. Legislation recently passed the U.S. House that would force insurers to drop coverage of abortion if they participate in the new federally subsidized system. (When members of Congress declared government bureaucrats should never get between patients and doctors, they weren't talking about themselves.)

And on Thursday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said women could delay a pap smear until 21 and get them less frequently.

While the group pointed out dangerous consequences of early and false detection of cervical cancer, the evidence against annual mammograms was less convincing. False alarms were causing ``angst'' and ``anxiety,'' news reports stated.

Most women would gladly trade the possibility of cancer for a full-blown panic attack -- followed by a clean bill of health.

`VERY PATRONIZING'

``It's a very patronizing attitude these scientists have taken,'' said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, who called for congressional hearings on cancer screening during a CNN interview. ``It's pretty outrageous to suggest women can't handle more information.''

She should know. The congresswoman found a lump in her breast at age 41 and believes early detection saved her life.

There are still lots of unanswered questions about the new cancer guidelines. Like, how would Twitter handle them?

That seems to be the measuring stick in Congress, where GOP leaders observed that the healthcare bill in the Senate would take 16,195 tweets to post in its entirety.

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri's retort: ``If we printed the healthcare bill in regular size font it would be the same length as Sarah Palin's book, but with more meat on the bone.''

Beth Reinhard is the political writer at The Miami Herald.