I've noted that radiation from mammograms is not a risk factor that is being discussed when folks talk about this issue on television or the printed and paperless press.
Risk factors such as false positives and stress are being stated on television and elsewhere but not the risk of exposing a woman's breast to the low doses of radiation during mammography - exposure that continues for years on a regular basis.
Was it a factor in the panel's investigation?
It was. (EDITED from I hope so.)
Harms of Detection and Early Intervention
The harms resulting from screening for breast cancer include psychological harms, unnecessary imaging tests and biopsies in women without cancer, and inconvenience due to false-positive screening results. Furthermore, one must also consider the harms associated with treatment of cancer that would not become clinically apparent during a woman's lifetime (overdiagnosis), as well as the harms of unnecessary earlier treatment of breast cancer that would have become clinically apparent but would not have shortened a woman's life. Radiation exposure (from radiologic tests), although a minor concern, is also a consideration.
Adequate evidence suggests that the overall harms associated with mammography are moderate for every age group considered, although the main components of the harms shift over time. Although false-positive test results, overdiagnosis, and unnecessary earlier treatment are problems for all age groups, false-positive results are more common for women aged 40 to 49 years, whereas overdiagnosis is a greater concern for women in the older age groups.
There is adequate evidence that teaching BSE is associated with harms that are at least small. There is inadequate evidence concerning harms of CBE.
The benefit of annual or biannual screening outweighs this risk due to radiation at some point of the analysis.
Surely that risk should be one that is weighed and discussed as part of this discussion about risks and benefits of mammography?
I'm also troubled that the discussion is merging annual pap smears (screening for cervical cancer) with annual mammograms.
There is no radiation and therefore no additional, cumulative cancer risk involved in getting a pap smear.
Beside the facts that both screenings involve women's body parts and cancer, they are two different animals altogether.
Perhaps the panel felt that with HPV vaccines now available, that women need to be screened less frequently for cervical cancer.
That's not been proven yet and defies common sense.
I say that if politicians continue to use women's bodies as battlegrounds in this way, that we should open up a Women's Health Insurance program (ala the supplemental insurance programs that started when the government created the Medicare Plan D medication donut hole) that covers preventative and necessary reproductive health care needs for all women.
If every women bought into the program for a small amount of money (even if they were covered), say $50 a year, then we could cover simple services like annual pap smears, periodic mammograms, HIV and STD testing, abortions, pregnancy testing and prenatal care for all women at a very low cost.
I'm sick of these issues being used as wedge issues when women are suffering because they can't afford adequate health care.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation nearly one in five non-elderly women are uninsured.
• Women who are younger and low-income are particularly at risk for being uninsured, as are women of color, especially Latinas.
• Nearly eight out of ten (79%) uninsured women are in families with at least one part-time or full-time worker. Almost two-thirds of uninsured women (62%) are in families with at least one adult working full-time. Just 21% of uninsured women are in families without workers.
• There is considerable state-level variation in uninsured rates across the nation, ranging from 29% of women in Texas to a low of 5% of women in Massachusetts.
If our government can't find a way to make adequate, affordable health insurance - including insurance for reproductive health needs - accessible to American women, I say to hell with them, let's take care of each other by contributing to a big pot so that all of us women can be covered.
In the meantime, every woman should use their critical thinking ability and explore issues that concern their own bodies carefully and completely because the public discussion about these matters is neither complete nor carefully constructed.