Health confusion

A government panel's recommendation that women need not receive mammograms until age 50 was totally confusing. So was its advice that women should be tested every two years and not annually.

The announcement Monday contradicted sound advice women have heeded for years — that they should get screening mammograms beginning at age 40.

It took a press conference from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to set the matter straight.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force does "not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government," the secretary said.

"My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years — talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions and make the decision that is right for you," Ms. Sebelius said.

Evidently the panel of doctors and scientists decided that early screenings sometimes lead to what they termed unneeded biopsies as well as false alarms. This is one opinion, and it goes against what the American Cancer Society has been saying for years.

Such conflicting information confuses and frightens people. It makes them wonder what to do medically and question what is covered.

Is this what can be expected if government-run health care comes to pass? Dueling announcements and contradictory information on preventive care?

Or as one member of Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., warned: "This is where you start getting a bureaucrat between you and your physician."

Let's hope that this is not the future of health care.