I’ve been waiting, not so patiently, since the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force released new recommendations for breast cancer screening, to know what Bernadine Healy thinks. Now we know: she says we should ignore them.
[CHRIS WALLACE]: What would you tell a woman patient with no particular history of breast cancer what she should do about getting mammograms?
DR. BERNADINE HEALY, FORMER HEAD OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: I think she should stick with the existing guidelines that come out of the medical professional organizations and have been in place for a long time, which is start your screening at age 40; if you are concerned about a risk, maybe a baseline of 35; and then — and then have it done every year in your 40s. You might go to every other year in your 50s.
And you and your doctor will decide for how much longer it should go.
WALLACE: So basically you’re saying ignore the [U.S. Preventative Services Task Force] recommendations this week.
HEALY: Oh, I’m saying very powerfully ignore them, because unequivocally — and they agreed with this — this will increase the number of women dying of breast cancer. Women in their 40s have a very aggressive kind of breast cancer. They tend to progress fast. And to not screen women in that age group is astounding to me, and it goes against the bulk of individuals who are actually caring for patients. You may save some money, Chris, but you’re not going to save lives.
Her opinion on the role/goal/composition of the Task Force:
This particular task force has been in existence for about 25 years and its focus is on public health, modeling of health policy and economics.
It does not have people who are experts in hands-on patient care, for the most part, and on oncology or even in breast cancer or cervical cancer. It gets information from those groups, but it ultimately comes up with models.
You know, Chris, there’s really been no new information here. It is a different way of looking at the same problem. Their perspective is if you can cut in half the money we’re spending on screening for breast cancer and lose only, you know, maybe 10 percent, 20 percent of the benefit, that’s a good tradeoff.
A doctor who is responsible ethically for their individual patient would not make that tradeoff.
…
This is not the voice that medicine has used that focuses on the individual patient rather than the good of society. And even if they included the other groups, like the obstetricians and gynecologists, and the oncologists, and the cancer society, that would be fine, but they didn’t.
The issue here is that we are listening to one voice. And unlike what the secretary said and Senator Stabenow just said, this is not just a recommendation. This is codified in law that this is the group that will be providing information.
The bolded sentences highlight precisely what I’ve been saying in discussions about this topic – and why I think the tradeoff supported by the guidelines are completely unacceptable.
I appreciate that overall, she did not allow Wallace to drag her into a politicized conversation about the topic.