Thoughts on the mammogram debate

In case you didn’t see Michelle’s letter to the editor in Sunday’s Yakima Herald-Republic:

To the editor — Re: The Nov. 17 Associated Press article about new guidelines for screening mammograms.

Apparently, the federal Preventive Services Task Force under the Obama administration knows more than the American Cancer Society when it comes to screening women for breast cancer! Is it just me, or is this statement outrageous? According to the Associated Press, under the new guidelines recommended by this task force, women do not need mammograms in their 40s and should not even bother with performing self-breast exams.

Oh, really? Never mind that a self-exam and mammogram found my cancer at age 39 (and I was not in a high-risk category); it seems that the new guidelines are nothing more than a cost-saving measure to pay for universal health care! If thousands of women between ages 40 and 50 die due to these new guidelines, then that’s a sacrifice we need to make for universal health care? No way! Thanks, but I’ll still be following the guidelines of the American Cancer Society and not some politically motivated task force.

It’s sad that after a decade of gains being made by women taught to perform self-exams and get recommended mammograms that we now have government saying, “It doesn’t matter.” Well, it will always matter to me!

MICHELLE BERTHON

Yakima