Why are women being told to forgo cervical cancer screenings?

[IndianaGreen]

In reality, the recommendations are in line with a wholesale restructuring of the health care system aimed at defending the profits of the health care industry at the expense of the well-being and lives of ordinary Americans.

Why are so many Democrats defending the for-profit system we currently have? Health insurance industry plays no role in the delivery of health care. In capitalism, the role of the health industry is to maximize profits, boost value of their stocks, by rationing health care delivery and keeping the sick from getting the care they need.

Why are women being told to forgo cervical cancer screenings?

By Kate Randall
21 November 2009

Only days after a government panel recommended cutting back screenings for breast cancer, another body has advised that women undergo less frequent screenings for cervical cancer, and begin them at a later age. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published guidelines Friday recommending that women not have Pap smear screenings until age 21, and that the frequency of Pap smears be scaled back after that.

The Pap smear is a highly effective screening procedure that has been credited with reducing deaths from cervical cancer by more than 70 percent since its introduction 50 years ago. Through the collection of cells from the cervix and their examination for abnormalities, Pap smears can detect cancer at its earliest stages, when it is most easily treated. The American Cancer Society estimates that 11,270 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2009, and 4,070 women will die from the disease.

What, then, lies behind these new recommendations that will radically alter the administration of a screening test that has been proven to save the lives of tens of thousands of women in the US? Promoters of the new guidelines argue that they are “science-based.” In reality, the recommendations are in line with a wholesale restructuring of the health care system aimed at defending the profits of the health care industry at the expense of the well-being and lives of ordinary Americans.

What is being developed is an institutionalized rationing of health care, in which the wealthy will have access to the most advanced and effective tests, procedures and drugs, and the working class majority will be denied them. Behind the attempt to present these recommendations as impartial and objective science is massive pressure from the corporate-financial elite and the Obama administration to solve the crisis of American capitalism at the expense of the living standards and lives of working people.

Women and the public at large have been shocked and outraged by these proposals to cut back on cancer screenings, and rightly so. They come as the US Senate is set to debate the latest version of health care legislation promoted by the Obama administration. Both the House and Senate health care bills are based on drastic cuts to Medicare and aim to slash medical costs for the government and the health care industry.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/canc-n21.shtml

[Zynx]

1. Is this another article about how the Obama administration hates women?

[IndianaGreen]

2. Read the article and draw your own conclusions

and stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

[Zynx]

3. If I saw you post anything reasonably complimentary once in a while I might take you

seriously.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Don't let the messenger get in the way of the message.

LGBT community has known for months of the increasing chasm between Obama's words and his deeds.

Having said that, the article in OP deals with the health industry, not with Obama.

[anigbrowl]

23. the only message here is that ignorance is no barrier to publication

the WSWS offers no evidence whatsoever that increased frequency of tests leads to improved outcomes, nor does it offer any evidence for the idea that a professional doctor's association is telling the public that it's OK to make less frequent use of its service at the behest of the he insurance industry.

[branders seine]

4. climate change is irreversible.

Neither the world's economy nor its ecosystems can any longer support 6 billion people.

An unprecedented human die off is coming sooner rather than later. We're talking 97% of humankind perishing. This can not be changed or avoided. It will happen within the next century.

The super wealthy know this. Indeed, they've worked hard to shape the dimensions of the catastrophe. Their plan is to survive as a ruling elite with a couple hundred million others to serve as a slave class.

In short, we "the people" are expendable. Our rulers don't want us to revolt completely, which could upset their plans for survival and pre-emeinence in the coming new world, so they mollify us with the superficial trappings of life as usual. But as the end nears, they will hoard more and more of civilization's treasure, and cut more and more people out of any share at all.




Or maybe not.

[Teaser]

6. your conspiracy theory is more plausible

than that in the OP.

[mkultra]

7. screen them starting at birth until death. Im glad you agree.

they should be screened every year regardless of how young they are.
Western medicine will save us all. Shop. Watch TV. Sleep.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. How many cases will there be in women under 21?

The indisputable fact that pap smears save lives doesn't mean that any conceivable use of the procedure is worthwhile.

I do not know what the numbers are on cases in women under 21 so I do not know whether ceasing to recommend pre-21 screening has a bad effect.

And that's the question, not whether the procedure saves lives in any circumstance. So when the article starts off trying to convince me that cervical cancer is bad and citing national numbers among all age cohorts I get the sense that I am being sold, not informed.

I know that cervical cancer is bad and pap smears are good! But nobody is proposing daily pap smears from birth onward so even that staunchest supporter of more pap smears accepts that there are diminishing returns.

Men are not routinely screened for prostate cancer related blood-products at 16 or even 36. Is that right or wrong? Depends on the nature of the disease. Either way, the demonstrated efficacy of that blood screening among 60 year-olds is irrelevant to the question.


(My objections are a journalism and PR issue, not a medical issue)

[FrenchieCat]

9. Was this new recommendation initiated by an "Obama" group?

Cause I don't really know who runs the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)....but they don't appear to be a governmental agency from what I can see. They appear to be the ones who "published guidelines Friday recommending that women not have Pap smear screenings until age 21".

But ok.

Far as the recommendations goes, I was listening to a couple of female doctors who are OBGYN speak about this issue on the news (Local Bay Area news report), and they were saying that medical advances have warranted that the old recommendations be looked at again, and this debate has been going on in the medical community for years.

I don't see how President Obama is responsible for this. Can you please explain?

[hileeopnyn8d]

10. In my opinion

this is in the wrong forum. That report has nothing to do with presidential politics or policy. It didn't come from a government agency, but I do so love when the far left and the far right appear to get together and spout the same talking points.

[johnaries]

11. wsws again? Why do people keep posting crap from this obvious

agenda-driven tinfoil hat site?
:shrug:

[IndianaGreen]

12. Socialists will never betray the working class from which they came

while the 2-party system has given us the best government that corporations can buy.

[Unvanguard]

17. WSWS has an agenda, and adheres to it whatever reason and evidence suggest.

It is possible to have a serious public health debate on the merits of various frequencies of screening for cervical cancer. But they are not after that.

The first thing a genuine, rational socialist voice should point out about this controversy is that it demonstrates the corruption of science brought about by a for-profit health system. Not because it encourages underscreening, but quite the opposite: because the people who profit from wasteful medicine have an incentive to argue in defense of it even when it obviously fails on the merits. This is a real problem and is at the heart of our health care cost crisis.

[anigbrowl]

18. Sure. They are pure as the driven snow, and incapable of error

Conveniently, anyone who doesn't measure up to this standard can be relabeled as 'not a real socialist', so you and the WSWS can keep peddling your fallacious, evidence-free arguments.

[IndianaGreen]

24. A Socialist government would have given you free universal health care

and all of our troops would be already home from Iraq and Afghanistan. I'll match that at whatever the 2-party system can deliver!

[anigbrowl]

26. So would a well-run capitalist government. Talk is cheap when you don't have to deliver.

I come from a country with free socialized healthcare, and have both clinical and administrative experience in delivering that care. That's not at all the same thing as socialism. If you are unable to tell the difference, then maybe it's time to seek out some education at your local community college (something I consider well worth the taxes that help to pay for it).

I don't take you or WSWS seriously for the same reason that I don't write in the names of opinionated cab drivers on electoral ballots. anyone can sit there saying that if they were in charge they'd grant the things people want, and a lot of people are sucker enough to believe that that's the same thing as being able to deliver it, in whole or in part.

[LWolf]

13. Why are so many DUers defending this idea?

Based on the "unrecced" status of your post, I have to assume that being good soldiers for the current administration and the current attempts to reform health insurance is more important than women's health or the condition of actual health care in the nation.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. Because we hate women and want them to die horribly from cancer.

That and because this is something doctors and scientists are recommeding.

We're monsters.

[anigbrowl]

19. less resources wasted on unnecessary tests = more resources for urgent treatment

More is not always better. Otherwise we would get full blood tests every day of the week.

If you spend, say, a billion dollars to test people 10% more frequently, but you only improve your detection of dangerous conditions by 1%, then you are doing something wrong, and 90% of the investment (in this example, $900 million) is actually money down the drain that doesn't really benefit anyone other than the people performing the tests (who collect a fee for their work).

[Unvanguard]

20. And unnecessary tests and treatment often pose health risks of their own, too.

It is not possible to discuss health care issues rationally without recognizing what we recognize in most other contexts, that it is always going to be necessary to balance costs and benefits.

[Nikki Stone1]

28. Nail hit head

LWolf rules.

[Unvanguard]

15. Until we learn that aggressive screening for everything is not smart health policy

we will never stop the rise in health care costs.

[anigbrowl]

16. Idiocy. Most doctors are paid by procedure, so their incentive is to recommend more, not less.

This WSWS article says 'oh it must be the health insurance industry', without considering the fact that the recommendations come from a panel of doctors, whose self-interest would be best-served by more frequent testing since they would get paid for performing more pap smears.

Notably, this article offers no medical or statistical arguments to back ups its position whatsoever - it's nothing more than an assumption of malice on the part of ACOG, and thus contributes nothing to the debate other than political hand-waving. when a gynecologist or epidemiologist steps forward to dispute this policy, I'll pay attention to them.

[pitohui]

21. hell by this reasoning why don't we get a pap smear every damn month?

does this writer honestly not realize that women actually do have something to do besides get fucking medical tests EVERY FUCKING FIVE MINUTES?

when i was younger it was required to see the ob/gyn every freaking 6 months, which was a MAJOR life nuisance, they switched the recommend to a year, and wowsers, guess what, nobody died

it costs money, time, and often lost work to go to the doctor, and it seems like some people don't understand that women aren't just guinea pigs to be there to receive all kinds of unnecessary tests

i don't know why "by magic" it would just happen that every year is the optimal amt of time to get a pap smear, i think this interval was decided because ob/gyns figured out they could get compensated for doing the same test every single year -- but i would like to get my tests based on how often i really need them, and once every 2 years seems more reality based -- than the previous "let's bill as often as possible" recommends of years gone by

wealthy women are busy women, you can bet your ass they are not getting all these unneeded tests done, their doctors are making recommends based on science -- who really thinks, say, oprah is getting a pap every 6 to 12 months? the lady has things to do and places to go and people to meet...

[anigbrowl]

22. Better yet, keep women locked up in the hospital

If men want to have sex with them, we can test them on the way in and only allow in candidates who are pre-approved by national referendum, so that everybody's voice is heard.

[pitohui]

27. i approve john cusack to be my sex care provider

what's that smiley for "evil grin" they used to have?

[FarCenter]

25. The health care industry makes more money from more frequent mammograms and pap tests

The doctors collect for more frequent office visits, the mammogram X-ray clinic collect more money, and the testing labs get more analysis fees.