Mammogram Controversy – Does More Harm Than Good Mean We Ignore the Good?
Fri. 20 2009 | Alicia Ostarello
Listen to your gut and get tested for you, not for anyone else.
There’s all this hub-bub about the US Preventative Services Task Force making a new recommendation on when women should start having regular mammograms, and it may not seem like the most important news to college students, since the recommended age is 50–not the typical age of a college student.
However, something important for college students is indeed being reported throughout the news of this recommendation. The USPSTF is citing that the reasons women should wait an extra ten years to get regular mammograms are as follows:
1. The test can lead to false positives.
2. The false positives and the test lead to anxiety and sometimes other, painful tests.
Wow. Well, with reasoning like that, I can’t wait to see what the USPSTF recommends next. I’m pretty sure HIV and STI tests are next on the axe list, because darn it if those tests don’t have the ability to produce false positives and lead to heart-thumping, mind-losing bouts of anxiousness in any person. In fact, the risks associated with mammograms and STI tests are the same as the risks of any test, so it stands to reason that faster than a cricket can chirp, we’ll be seeing all diagnostic tests fly out the window–why know and deal with the consequences when you could be blissfully happy and anxiety-free?
Obviously, the idea of not being tested for anything does not make any sense. But the point of extending the logic of the mammogram recommendation to that outcome was to demonstrate that, once again, it is important to analyze the news being reported.
It’s hard being given two sets of instructions by health care professionals. We’re told to get shots as preventative care and that even though they hurt, the short term pain is far better than the illness they are preventing. When we’re given prescriptions, we get a list of side effects that include things like “anorexia, depression, hair loss and death.” The list is justified with the following statement: “Remember, your doctor has prescribed this medication to you because he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects.” And then, all of a sudden, we’re told to not get a certain test because of side effects like anxiety and false positives–how are those side effects any worse than losing your hair of ceasing to exist as a human being?
This is where that active thinking process should take hold again. Even though a fancy-sounding agency like the USPSTF is making a recommendation, what are other important agencies saying? Check out the American Cancer Society’s response:
“Our experts make this recommendation having reviewed virtually all the same data reviewed by the USPSTF, but also additional data that the USPSTF did not consider,” ACS said. “The USPSTF says that screening 1,339 women in their 50s to save one life makes screening worthwhile in that age group. Yet USPSTF also says screening 1,904 women ages 40 to 49 in order to save one life is not worthwhile. …With its new recommendations, the USPSTF is essentially telling women that mammography at age 40 to 49 saves lives; just not enough of them.”
Burn, right?
So keep getting tested for HIV, mono, meningitis, or whatever else it is your health care provider recommends or your gut instinct tells you is important to check out. And if anyone, even the United States, tells you that knowledge isn’t power and it’s not worth your time to know your health status on any health issue, think again and opt to save your own life.
When my girlfriend got a false positive on a pregnancy test, now that was stressful… but do I think she shouldn’t have done it? Not a chance. One of our friends is Jenn Lyon from Survivor fame. She’s now mid 30s but has been battling breast cancer since 2005. She’s wished she had had a mammogram in her 20s… This is a stupid recommendation from the Task Force, one that competent doctors are running away from, and one that I am afraid will become all too common as rationed care makes its way through the Senate. It’s an issue that ultimately affects everyone because we’re young today and old tomorrow.
I was definitely thinking about pregnancy tests when I wrote this. I don’t think you’d meet anyone who has taken a serious test and thought, “Man, was that a waste of time.” I think this recommendation is both uniformed and not what it seems.
The most frustrating part is that if people just hear the news and don’t attempt to interpret it, they are likely to say, “oh, okay. No mammograms until I’m 50,” without any sort of critical thought. We have to actively think about what we hear, and I’m worried not a lot of people are doing this.