Goverment says one life isn't worth saving

I'm glad I got your attention. Yesterday the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (which I really wish I could say was created by the Obama Administration, but it wasn't) released its new guidelines on screening for breast cancer. The new guidelines say:

*Most women in their 40s should not routinely get mammograms.

*Women 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every other year until they turn 75, after which the risks and benefits are unknown. (The task force's previous guidelines had no upper limit and called for exams every year or two.)

*The value of breast exams by doctors is unknown. And breast self-exams are of no value. (source AP news)

The article goes on to say:

Starting at age 40 would prevent one additional death but also lead to 470 false alarms for every 1,000 women screened. Continuing mammograms through age 79 prevents three additional deaths but raises the number of women treated for breast cancers that would not threaten their lives.

My wife is a breast cancer survivor. The tumor was too small to find in a self-examination, it was found in a mammogram. Thankfully the spot had not spread and the doctors were able to perform a lumpectomy to remove the cancer.

According to these new guidelines my wife would not even have been having the mammograms which found her cancer. And by the time she would have had the mammogram, who knows, it may have spread and it would have been too late.

I know that the government says that only one life would be saved if women started getting mammograms in their 40s. And look at how many false alarms there are, how those poor women have to worry. I know what that worry is like, I worried with my wife as we were waiting for the results of the next test. Well, I know of no medical test that doesn't give a false alarm.

I want to know, if the one life that is saved is a friend, or your sister, or your mother, or your wife?

Or your own?

Isn't that mammogram worth it?

The government doesn't think so.

I do.