Through the busyness of my day today I caught wind of the latest report by a group of doctors called the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF). I’m all for improving health care by encouraging better preventive care. Good, well rounded preventative care will keep us all healthier. But the decisions of this group are indeed quite puzzling. Beyond puzzling. They’ve gotten me so incensed that I’m firing off this hastily written post. In case you haven’t heard yet this panel has reversed an earlier recommendation, by the same group (but with different members), and now don’t think women between the ages of 40-49 should routinely get mammograms to screen for breast cancer. The key word here is “routinely”. The don’t flat out say no one in this age group should get them, just that the risk vs benefits should be a conversation between the woman and her doctor and a decision made from that point. Shouldn’t ALL of us be having thoughtful conversations with out medical providers about a whole host of risk vs benefit situations? Isn’t that a sound place to begin taking better care of ourselves? That conversation isn’t the problem. What I see as a huge potential problem is now women and their doctors may face additional battles when it comes to paying for these mammograms. And coming at a time when the country is hashing out the details of health care reform makes me all that more suspicious of the motivation behind these recommendations. If you can’t see the potential problems with insurance companies and these recommendations then you’re rather blind to how insurance companies are working these days. Oh, they might not make changes right away – they’ll wait until the news of these recommendations has left the media news cycle before they do that.
Aside from the issue of mammograms I find another recommendation of the panel even more startling and disturbing. Unbelievably they don’t think doctors should be teaching their patients about regular self breast exams. Apparently they’re worried about the poor widdle women having anxiety if they find something. Excuse me?!?! Anxiety? You’ve got to be kidding me! How about educating women that breast cancer is quite survivable especially when detected early. Or teaching them that just because you’ve discovered a lump it doesn’t even mean you have cancer for goodness sakes. That would go a very long way to reducing anxiety. And I’d sure as hell rather be anxious than dead. Hell, why not teach patients how to deal with anxiety. And I’m not talking about prescribing another little “fix me” pill. I’m talking about proven stress reduction techniques. How about treating women as the intelligent adults we are?
This recommendation is so outrageous I’d almost go as far as to think that this borders on gendercide. I know, that’s taking it a bit too far considering the statistics but come on, why in the world should doctors be encouraged to have their female patients know LESS about their bodies? Unless perhaps if you know less about your body you’re less apt to ask intelligent questions of your doctor and more inclined to buy something from big daddy pharma to fix your problems.
Guess what? I don’t give a frak what this panel says about breast exams I intend to continue to be well acquainted with the look and feel of my breasts. Hell I may even continue to enlist the help of others in keeping track of any changes. I encourage every woman reading this to do the same and every man to encourage every woman they know to do the same too – and to teach your children about the importance of being well acquainted with their own bodies. And you, my not so esteemed panel of “experts”, ought to be downright ashamed of discouraging self knowledge. How the hell is that “preventative” medicine? How do you explain violating your oath of “do no harm”?
The next thing I’m curious about is what they’ll have to say about testicular cancer.
