So, the new guidelines are recommendations based on science. Sounds reasonable, but........ also recommended was that doctors cease doing or teaching women how to do a breast exam. The reason? Now here is where it gets just stupid.... It's not worth the doctor's time! The whole breast exam takes under 5 minutes. The instructions could take maybe 2-3 minutes. This is not worth the doctor's time???? The instructions, I assume, would be a one-time thing. A young woman's life is not worth her knowing how to do a breast exam???
Another issue raised because of these recommendations is that women, in their 40's, would suffer emotionally while waiting for mammogram results, suffer emotionally if they got a false positive and suffer emotionally with a follow-up exam that may prove to be negative. What? Does this panel think that women are that fragile, that stupid, or that intellectually devoid of the ability to think?
And now that these recommendations are public, it didn't take the health insurance companies long to state that they are already thinking of adjusting their coverage to exclude payments for mammograms for women starting at age 40.
Apparently, not even one of the panelists was a breast cancer expert. Talk about a "stacked deck," no pun intended.
How about a strong recommendation that every women, at age 40, get a paid mammogram to be used as a baseline. Then one paid mammogram every 3 years from then on unless a lump is discovered. Wouldn't that be more practical?
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