You want to rethink that?

I'm in a bit of shock after reading this article that says a government task force is recommending that women in their 40s do not need mammograms and that self-exams do no good.

... the government panel of doctors and scientists concluded that getting screened for breast cancer so early and so often leads to too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women's odds of survival.

Bullshit.

I was 36 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was not found with a mammogram, but had I known that it was recommended to have a baseline mammogram between the ages of 35 and 40, maybe my cancer would have been found earlier. Maybe all I would have needed was a lumpectomy and radiation and not chemo. Maybe I wouldn't have had to deal with bone pain, nausea, hair loss and the fatigue that lasted nearly three years.

And self-exams do no good? I found my lump on my own. True, it was by accident, but I felt the thing. Had I been doing regular self-exams, I probably would have felt it even earlier. And that's why I tell every woman I know, especially those under 40, to do their exams.

This statement really pisses me off:

The task force advice is based on its conclusion that screening 1,300 women in their 50s to save one life is worth it, but that screening 1,900 women in their 40s to save a life is not, Brawley wrote.

Since when is one life, no matter the age, not worth saving?

Starting at age 40 would prevent one additional death but also lead to 470 false alarms for every 1,000 women screened.

So what? Does the risk of a false alarm outweigh the possibility of saving a life? Speaking from first-hand experience: Hell, no. Or, as Dr. Lillie Shockney said:

no doctor can predict ahead of time whether a breast cancer you might get at some future time will spread to other organs and take your life. If a woman is alerted by a mammogram that she has a small (4 millimeters across), invasive tumor that seems to have favorable prognostic factors, then she can probably be cautiously optimistic.

But if that woman never gets a mammogram and instead finds the lump herself later on--after it has ballooned to 2 centimeters (10 times its earlier size)--then we would have no way of knowing whether she is going to survive her diagnosis and treatment. All bets are off.

By the way, 2 centimeters was the size of my lump when I had my first sonogram. And by the way again, younger women tend to get more aggressive cancers. So for me, waiting until 40 ... well would I have even made it?

And when you consider that only a little over two months ago, in his address to Congress, President Obama said this:

"... insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives."

then the task force's recommendations are ill-advised. Preventive medicine is the best medicine, and our country's medical providers — and our government — should be doing more to encourage it. Getting people to get preventive screenings, eat better and exercise will go much further to reducing the nation's overall medical costs.