Comment on the recent Mammogram/Pap smear decisions

Two new recommendations that advise for delaying the start of screening for breast cancer to age 50 and pushing the age for cervical cancer tests (first Pap smear at age 21) could have a lot of ramifications for the universal health care legislation winding its way thought the Senate. For one, it gives dimwits like Glenn Beck to say things like - look here is an example of the government mandating changes to your health care and this is the kind of rationing that will happen when universal health care rolls around.  Secondly it throws a lot of women into a state of confusion - most women in America have been conditioned to think that screening for cancer early using mammograms and Pap smears is a good and a vital thing. Now the recommendations point out to the fact that screening at less frequent interval prevents cancer just as well with reduced costs and also points out the fact that avoids unnecessary early interventions could be harmful to an otherwise healthy woman.

To purveyors of the rhetoric spouting from the likes of Glenn Beck, one must bear in mind that the recommendations issued was not be any government body but by outside experts that advise the Department of Health and Human services. Half of the members in the panel are made up of women. Also, 'the American College of Physicians made similar recommendations two years ago and the National Breast Cancer Coalition, an advocacy group for patients, has been saying for years that mammography screening has been oversold, has significant limitations and can cause harm' (via). Despite all of that the likes of Glenn Beck and Faux News could care less – we know.

To the latter issue regarding women's confusion regarding the changes, one must keep in mind that we are reaching a stage where intuition and gut feel and guidelines from doctors whose back pockets are filled with goodies from pharmaceutical companies should slowly be replaced by the use of concrete data in setting of standards. A lot of the legislation written into the universal health care bill also is based on evidence based medicine whose time has finally come rather than intuition based medicine which is slowly being phased out. I am sure initially we would see resistance and outrage from women’s groups but the longer run will make it clear that due process trumps intuition