The First Death Panel–Gov’t tries to undermine mammography
Nov 16th, 2009 by David Anderson
Called nonsense by Physicians, the government’s preventative treatments panel ignores that early protection has resulted in a 30% reduction in death rates and an even greater reduction for the women it would deny screening, those under 40. The according to a Swedish study, the success the U. S. has had in reducing deaths from breast cancer is based upon early detection and entry into therapy. I always believed that the benefit for most women is every two years until 50 then every year. There are studies to back that position. This one is insane. It uses false excuses like there are more false positives which result in (harmless) biopsies. It ignores the benefit of establishing a baseline. It even discourages women from self exams which is often the first indication for many women. The concern seems more on the small cost than the real benefit. Hopefully insurance companies will stick with the American Cancer Society and not follow the blind leader.
I know you guys are new to the scientific method, but this is a paper being published. This means that it will be studied further and, I suspect, be shot full of holes. That is how it works.
Stay tuned.
You know that this has more to do with bureaucracy than science. It is not some university making a study. It is a government panel making a recommendation. Even more interesting is that this “study” showed that mamography of women under 40 saves the lives of one woman in 1900. Above 50 it is 3 in a 100. Under 40, most masses are benign and most biopsies found by the test are good news. It concluded that money could be saved by not testing them since 99% come back negative. That is ubsurd. It said that most women would have unecessary anxity while waiting for the results.
In other words, the solution is not to tell women that most likely the result will be benign, but we just need to be sure. It is to let hundreds of thousands go into advance stage cancer and let 5000 die when it could have been prevented. That is the ubsurd logic that we fear will become mandated when this DHHS takes over health care.
It would be like saying the deaths in the entire Iraq war are meaningless and we should have avoided reporting them because it causes anxious feelings.
No, it is not like that at all. It is science-based. The recommendations also said that patients should discuss it with their doctor and make decisions based on their personal history. Personally, I am not comfortable with these recommendations, but my wife has a family history and a history of run-ins with the dreaded C word. She has had annual mammograms since her early 20′s.
There is also a test called something like the triple test for pregnant women. It tests for a few birth defects. The false positive rate on it is extremely high and getting a positive gets you an appointment with a “genetic counselor” that explains your options if the next test comes back positive. The next test is an amniocentesis, which is very invasive. But the time between the initial false positive and finally being cleared that there are no problems with your unborn child is 6 weeks. An awful 6 weeks with an emotional basket-case (me).
With our second child, we skipped the test.
I think the point is that if every woman gets a mammogram every year and 10,000 women get false positives and this results in 210,000 woman-days (10K women at 3 weeks) of angst for fear that you have cancer and you are going to die (yes, this is what happens), it may be better for your overall health to not have the wildly inaccurate test in the first place.
“I think the point is that if every woman gets a mammogram every year and 10,000 women get false positives and this results in 210,000 woman-days (10K women at 3 weeks) of angst for fear that you have cancer and you are going to die (yes, this is what happens), it may be better for your overall health to not have the wildly inaccurate test in the first place.”
So, liberals think women are just too weak to handle the “angst” of medical testing?
I guess the new National Healthcare slogan will be “Breast Cancer won’t spread if you ignore it.”
don’t feel left out guys, prostate tests are next on the chopping bock.
Actually, do you know the likelihood that you will develop an enlarged prostate by the time you are 100 years old? about 100%. And in many cases, you will die of other causes before you would die of prostate cancer.
LG, please explain the science behind the recommendation that women should not do, and should not be taught to do, self-exams?
If I had done the study, I could explain it. As I said, I am not defending the recommendations, per se. I am defending the notion that this is some conspiracy that is trying to kill women. Can you tell me why (with data) women should be taught to BSE’s? Is there a difference in survival rates in women that do and women that don’t?
Is there a difference in survival rates in women that do and women that don’t?
Actually, yes.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by DelawarePolitics.net and DelawarePolitics.net, delawareBNN. delawareBNN said: DelawarePolitics.net: The First Death Panel–Gov’t tries to undermine mammography: Number of comments: 1Called n… http://bit.ly/12VZOb [...]