Organization: Teen breast tests wasteful, harmful
Jeff Baillon of KMSP in Minnesota’s Twin Cities reports that the National Breast Cancer Coalition (a nonprofit grassroots advocacy and fundraising organization) opposes Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s proposed education program pushing for breast cancer screening in girls as young as 15.
The coalition’s president called the bill a “waste of taxpayer dollars,” saying that it could actually “harm young women,” Baillon reported.
In the piece, oncologist Barry Kramer, who leads the Office of Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health, sayys there is no evidence that early screening is beneficial to young women, and some that it may even harm them through unnecessary biopsies that may then impede detection later in life when the risks are much higher.
Related
- Experts question early breast cancer screening push
- Cancer Screening: The Clash between Intuition and Science
Kramer, who spoke at Health Journalism 2008, made this presentation on the panel “Lies, damned lies and medical statistics: How to interpret the evidence” at Health Journalism 2008.
Comments
One Comment on Organization: Teen breast tests wasteful, harmful
-
Navratilova, GMA uncritically push screening : Covering Health on
Wed, 14th Apr 2010 12:36 pm
[...] pointed out the fallacies lurking in the tennis star’s screening recommendations, beyond the obvious age-related [...]
Please read our blog commenting policies.
-
Join us in Atlanta
for Health Journalism 2012
Fellowship applications
due Feb. 27
New at HealthJournalism.org
- Data gives depth to investigation of patient safety
- What reporters should know about Alzheimer’s and related dementias
- Apply for fellowships to attend Health Journalism 2012
- AHCJ asks Supreme Court to permit broadcast of arguments in health reform case
- Tips for print, online journalists to embrace broadcast opportunities
- Numbers reveal how often, or how rarely, states check doctors’ disciplinary records
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
