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Let's stick with mammograms

On Monday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force took a step backward in the fight against breast cancer. The task force announced that it would no longer recommend routine mammograms for women between the ages of 40 and 49, a group that accounts for about one out of six breast cancers. The recommendation is based on data that find that mammograms do reduce the risk of death in these women, but apparently not enough deaths to recommend that all women 40 to 49 should be screened.

This development has once again raised a heated public discourse on the benefits, risks and harms of breast cancer screening. This rigorous discussion is an important part of reaching clear and understandable public health guidance. But it can be messy and confusing to the public. And, in this case, it could result in fewer women getting screened and a return to the days when we caught cancers only when they were big enough to feel. That's a step the American Cancer Society does not want to take.

Breast cancer is the leading

Common- sense care

C alm.

That's not a word one hears much these days, but calm is what some are urging in the wake of a new federal report on breast-cancer screening.

Released Monday, the report has caused a stir with its recommendation that women in their 40s don't need annual mammograms and that self-exams no longer should be part of a doctor's instructions to female patients. Instead, the report suggests, women 40-49 who are not in a high-risk group should wait until 50 to begin mammograms and then have them every other year.

Broward grant helps fund cancer screenings

When her twin sister was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago, Charlene Bondy decided to get her first mammogram at age 60.

But the Coconut Creek waitress didn't have health insurance to cover the cost of the exam and she couldn't afford to pay for it. So she turned to the Broward County Health Department, which picked up the tab under its Breast and Cervical Cancer Initiative, which offers free or low-cost breast and pelvic screenings to women age 50 to 64.

``I had always been too busy or I never had money to go get a mammogram,'' said Bondy, a cancer survivor.

Misreading politics of a disease

I s there such a thing as communications malpractice? If so, we might consider the case of Women v. the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

I'm not talking about medical malpractice. The scientists who surveyed the mammogram studies did their job honorably. They looked at research that has slowly and without a lot of fanfare questioned the value of routine mammograms for women in their 40s without other risk factors. They concluded -- as had others before them -- that the benefits from screening younger women were oversold and the risks were undersold.

They went on to recommend that women start having mammograms at 50 and then have them every other year instead of annually. But then they dropped these guidelines onto an unprepared public like leaflets from a helicopter of experts who didn't understand the conditions on the ground.

Breast cancer checklist: 20 ways to protect yourself

Ask any woman what disease she's most afraid of, and chances are she'll say breast cancer.

``Almost everyone knows someone who did everything `right' and still got breast cancer,'' says Dr. Victoria Seewaldt, co-leader of the breast and ovarian cancer program at the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

``That can make women feel like they have no control.''