Money first, women with breast cancer second?

This video from CNN in the USA is called Rep. Wasserman Schultz on Situation Room about new breast cancer screening guidelines.

By Joanne Laurier in the USA:

US government mammogram recommendations

Denial of breast cancer screenings will have deadly consequences

18 November 2009

A US government panel’s recommendation that women under the age of 50 not undergo annual mammogram screenings has provoked outrage from oncologists and other health care professionals, as well as breast cancer patients and survivors.

Compelling evidence suggests that following the advice of the United States Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) will lead to thousands of new breast cancer deaths and a rise in the incidence of the disease. One in eight women in the US (13 percent) will be afflicted by the disease at some point in their lives. An estimated 182,000 American women were newly diagnosed in 2008 with breast cancer, and more than 40,000 women died from the illness.

After decades of promoting mammograms as the best tool for early detection of breast cancer, the USPSTF is recommending against yearly screenings for women between the ages of 40 and 49, claiming the risks outweigh the benefits.

The recommendations announced Monday have been denounced by a wide range of specialists in the field and people who deal on a daily basis with the devastation that breast cancer inflicts upon hundreds of thousands of women and their families every year. Both the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute condemned the change.

The American College of Radiology / American Roentgen Ray Society says:

USPSTF mammography recommendations will result in countless unnecessary breast cancer deaths each year

Monday’s recommendation by a US government panel that women under the age of 50 not undergo annual mammogram screenings should serve as a warning on the future of health care in America: here.

Breast cancer: A controversy has enveloped Bill Keller, columnist and former executive editor of the New York Times, and his wife Emma Gilbey Keller, who writes for the British Guardian newspaper. It has to do with separate columns published by each within a few days of one another, both of them expressing a callous and haughty indifference to human suffering and an aversion to ordinary people receiving life-extending medical care: here.

Only days after a government panel recommended cutting back screenings for breast cancer, another body has advised that women undergo less frequent screenings for cervical cancer, and begin them at a later age: here.

See also here.

Shulamith Firestone – Radical Feminist Theorist: here.

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