A step back for women's health

[THE BOUNCER]

Editor's note: Susan Scanlan is president of the Women's Research & Education Institute and chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, which describes itself as a coalition of more than 240 progressive women's groups representing more than 12 million American women. She helped found the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues and its policy arm, WREI, and was director of the caucus for five years.

Washington (CNN) -- I've been digesting the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for two weeks now. And I'm still swallowing hard.

How else to react to the cockamamie recommendations to discontinue routine breast self-exams, along with mammograms, for 40-something women?

Let's take one giant leap backward for women's health! These task forcers have devalued the only tool available to women for fighting what is practically a health scourge in our country.

I know from scourges. The granddaughter and daughter of breast cancer victims, my time in the barrel came in 2005. Four years and a double mastectomy later, I'm still kicking.

Also stricken: my best friend, my college roommate, two cousins and my sister, whose "unnecessary" mammogram found a stage 3.5 tumor when she was at the invincible age of 42.

And, no, not one of our sad sorority has the BRAC genes that signal a predilection for breast cancer. (The panel says the new recommendations don't apply to them.)

Full Story: A step back for women's health - CNN.com

[redsquirrel]

Yeah, this broke last week or so.

The major problem with this is really relating to the healthcare reform Obama is trying to pass. These task forces are potentially going to be determining what kind & what type of care we all could receive.

Their findings from the study stated basically that women ages 40-50 don't benefit from early detection, and that many false positives are seen on a mammogram. The main goal was to get better technology- to eliminate additional costs generated from mammograms that give a false positive.

I don't agree with it by any means. But, I can understand the line of thinking regarding better technology. I'm thinking that with better technology, mammograms won't be needed as early or as often.