I have to say I was pretty surprised.

The mainstream was actually weighing scientific evidence and making recommendations that went back on years of "expert" opinion and research?

Hard to believe--but there it was, a recommendation, from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, that women hold off on mammograms until they're 50, and then to have them only every other year. Quite a change from the previous guidelines that called for women to start at 40 and have one every single year.

Of course, the American Cancer Society and American College of Radiology jumped all over this one. "[This] is an opportunity to miss some cancer and miss saving lives," said a rep from the Cancer Society. They still recommend starting at 40, and having a mammogram every year, claiming they looked at the same evidence as the Task Force, but that they also reviewed data the Task Force didn't consider (what data that is, they didn't say. But I wonder if it involved receipts for all those machines...).

The radiology folks came right out and said the decision represents significant harm to women's health.

Hold on a second here. Significant harm? I think they have this backwards.

In fact, though the mainstream is taking a step in the right direction here, they're certainly not admitting to the full story. In fact, the full story probably calls for avoiding mammograms altogether.

Back in January of this year, Amanda Ross wrote about one of the possible dangers of mammography--that it may in fact CAUSE cancer ("Leaving well enough alone," 1/19/2009). A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine had found that the incidence of invasive breast cancer was 22% higher in women who were regularly screened. They even ruled out that the repeat screenings were just catching more cases.

And in "More than just a pain--the dangers of mammography", Dr. Wright laid out the facts--mammograms only catch 25% of cancers, and each one raises your risk of cancer by another 1% because of the radiation.

About a year ago, Dr. Wright wrote about thermography, a much safer, pain-free, alternative to mammography ("Forget your annual mammogram!"). It only misses 5-10% of cancers and comes with a low incidence of false positives.

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