Do you know whether women in their 40s should have routine mammograms? A lot of our colleagues think they do.
Tuesday’s papers carried stories on new guidelines issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that suggest that women in their 40s should no longer have routine mammograms, that women over 50 should have mammograms every two years, not annually, and that women should no longer be encouraged to examine their own breasts.
It’s not the last word on the subject; the American Cancer Society, among others, disagrees. As with most things in science, certainty is elusive, so researchers do the best they can with the evidence they have.
Some reporters and writers are not nearly so careful.
On the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton summarizes the findings and throws around statistics, but she prejudices her story from the start. The news is wrapped around the story of a 42-year-old woman whose cancer was caught early by a routine mammogram, and who pleads with doctors not to throw away this useful tool. Ashton did not show us a woman who endured months or years of uncertainty and turmoil because of a false positive.
If that weren’t enough, Ashton goes rogue and tells us herself that the guidelines are bunk. “As a medical professional,” she tells Couric, “I can understand the statistical thinking …but I think I’m going to have a hard time recommending that they don’t get screening.”
At Forbes, Mary Ellen Egan also knows better than the experts. In a piece headlined “Breast Cancer Screening: The Wrong Message,” she calls the guidelines “a dangerous precedent.” Sure, screening in women in their 40s might not save many lives, she writes, but “what if you’re that one woman whose life is spared? What if that one woman is your wife, your mother or your daughter?”
Adam Tschorn, in a Los Angeles Times blog, tells us where to buy $14.99 T-shirts protesting the new guidelines, and gives us this: “Anyone who has suffered through breast cancer — or had a loved one who has — will probably tell you that performing 1,900 preventive mammograms to save the life of one woman isn’t too big a hurdle.” Any word from the 1,900 who had mammograms for nothing, some of whom tearfully–and wrongly–told their husbands and children they had cancer? Not from Tschorn.
I’m not arguing against opinion pieces, or saying that we shouldn’t be able to discuss the pros and cons of the new guidelines in our copy. But this isn’t the way to do it.
For an example of a ruminative, personal piece that works well, check out the excellent blog post by Deborah Kotz on the US News website. Kotz turns 40 next year, and she wonders, in the post, whether she should get a mammogram. She notes that the American Cancer Society disagrees with the new guidelines. She informs her speculation with reporting, and concludes with “we have a complex decision to make about when to start mammography—40 or 50? I’m still uncertain, though I’m leaning towards waiting.” She’s tentative in her conclusion, and she never claims to know more than the people she’s interviewing.
Others:
David Olmos of Bloomberg tells it straight: “Annual mammograms for most women in their 40s have more drawbacks than benefits, said a panel of U.S. doctors that recommended women wait until age 50 to start getting breast cancer screening tests every two years.”
Liz Szabo at USA Today: “Most women don’t need to get mammograms until they reach age 50, according to a controversial new report that recommends that far fewer women undergo the breast cancer screenings.”
Alice Park at Time: “Most women don’t need to get mammograms until they reach age 50, according to a controversial new report that recommends that far fewer women undergo the breast cancer screenings.”
Julie Steenhuysen at Reuters: “Sweeping new U.S. breast cancer guidelines released on Monday recommend against routine mammograms for women in their 40s, but several groups immediately rebelled against the recommendations.”
– Paul Raeburn
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