No mammogram for you!

Too expensive for the proletariat?

As we transition into government run health care, we'll be getting more mainstream media news stories like this:

As many as one-quarter of breast cancers identified through routine mammography are "overdiagnosed," according to a new study that could reignite the debate about screening guidelines.

Overdiagnosis refers to cancers that are too small to be detected by means other than a mammogram and would not become lethal in a woman's lifetime.

"Overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment of nonfatal cancer creates a substantial ethical and clinical dilemma and may cast doubt on whether mammography screening programs should exist," said lead author Dr. Mette Kalager, a researcher at the Telemark Hospital in Norway and a visiting scientist at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "This dilemma can be reduced only when potentially fatal cancer that requires early detection and treatment can be reliably identified."

Until then, Kalager said, "women eligible for screening need to be comprehensively informed about the risk for overdiagnosis."

You peasants must understand, under Norwegian-style government health care, vulnerable female citizens are spared the risk of "overdiagnosis" by simply substituting no diagnosis at all.  Bends the cost curve down, you see.

At the moment, mammogram technology is still improving, but we doubt progress can continue under federal bureaucratic control.

This machine, the Selenia Dimensions System, is becoming very popular.  It was originally made by the Hologic company in Bedford, Massachusetts but was also being developed at Mass General Hospital.  This device was approved by the Food and Drug Administration this past February and is now found in nine states.  In fact, dozens of hospitals that aided with 3D mammography trials are planning on purchasing these machines.  The most impressive finding radiologists observed is a 7% improvement in discerning the difference between cancerous and noncancerous tissue when using these machines.

Talk about a "war on women."  When will American women wake up to what the Democrats are doing to them?  So far, opposing voices are still out there, although they better watch their backs.