Health screening recommendations causing anger, confusion among women

The World

This week a government physicians’ group, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, issued a recommendation that women with no underlying risk factors for breast cancer wait until they are 50 before getting regular mammograms. Until that point, the recommended age for the screening was 40. And today the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology issued a recommendation of its own. That group says women shouldn’t get the pap smear test that screens for cervical cancer until they are 21. They also said women should get the tests less frequently than many do now: once every two years for women under 30 and once every three years for women over 30. The new recommendations have many women up in arms. Dr. Andrea Price, an OBGYN, says some of her patients are confused and dismayed by these recommendations. We hear what she recommends.

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