"Taking unspecified issue with "the modeling data used in the analysis," it stated "a substantial number of women who receive biopsies because of a screening mammogram are found to have cancer." Mayo's Dr. Sandhya Pruthi added "there are many stories about younger women who have found cancer early as a result of screening."

I'm not sure why she made mention of stories. Dr. Pruthi is surely a talented clinician, but in supporting mammograms for women in their 40s here she is citing anecdotes, not data. It would have been better for her to acknowledge that when it comes to population-wide recommendations about screening and illness, medicine always eventually draws a line in the sand somewhere. People invariably will fall on either side of that line wrongly, but if we don't draw a line somewhere, you have to screen everybody for everything, and screening sets in motion the potential for new harms."

It seems that anyone who opposes the USPSTF recommendations trots out personal anecdotes to bolster their argument. Scott countered and concluded with an anecdote of his own:

"I would like nothing more than for our society to prevent the incidence of breast cancer. It took the life of my mom, who identified a tumor on her own at 37, was treated surgically at Mayo in the mid 1970s, and who then lived another 26 years. But my mom believed in science, and in trusting science, and in this case, the science says what it says. I hope that Mayo can do the same, even when doing so runs against that which is popular."

The first online comment posted in response to Scott's opinion piece stated that "there isn't one single oncologist on the US Preventive Services Task Force." I've heard that curious argument before. Evidence is evidence - regardless of whether you're a primary care doc, an oncologist, an epidemiologist, an ob-gyn or a breast surgeon. Evidence-based medicine should be guided by the best evidence, not by the personal experiences or preferences of any specialty group.

1. Many in the general public (most of those quoted in news stories) are not prepared for evidence to be used in making health care recommendations. They haven't been prepared by the health care industry, by their physicians, or by the news media.

2. Many in health care (many of those quoted in news stories) are too invested in their own preferences to allow evidence to make a difference in their practices.

3. There is an undeniable and clear bias in many news stories, reporters and news organizations for promoting screening - evidence be damned. I've reported on this before and last week provided overwhelming new evidence. (Mind you - I said "many", not "all.")

4. The USPSTF, which is a collection of independent experts, has no public relations arm. They simply review the evidence and publish their recommendations.

5. The public relations machinery of the American Cancer Society, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology - and other groups that opposed the USPSTF recommendations - helped the anti-USPSTF message rule the media all of last week.

6. Politicians chimed in - sometimes distorting the evidence beyond all recognition. The clash between politics and science at such times is predictable and disgusting.

7. The rhetoric used to oppose the USPSTF recommendations was the ugliest and most ill-founded I can remember.

8. There was some excellent journalism done on the issue last week, but it was overwhelmed by and drowned out by the drumbeat of dreck shoveled out by many news organizations - including in much (not all) of what was provided on network TV.

9. The week may have caused harm to the nation's discussion of health care reform.

10. The week was certainly a setback for the nation's understanding of science, of evaluation of evidence, of the potential harms of screening tests.

Kirsten Boyd Goldberg writes in this week's Cancer Letter:

"In the past three decades, attempts to develop rational, evidence-based screening guidelines for breast cancer in the U.S. have always generated intense controversy.

What happened this week with the new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation has happened many times before:

An independent panel of experts is assigned to rationally assess the data and evaluate the level of evidence for screening in order to minimize the role of commercial and political interests in promoting a test that might or might not reduce cancer mortality.

The moment the panel's document is released, political combat ensues. The result is a cacophony. The resulting cacophony angers politicians who don't understand why "the experts" can't agree on "one simple message."

The anger of politicians frightens federal health officials who want to protect their budgets and their ability to run programs without meddling from Congress.

The federal health officials bob and weave and distance from the expert panel's recommendations.

The expert panel becomes the focal point of the anger. Commercial and political interests make accusations about the panel's composition, experience, and potential conflicts of interest. The panel must have been politically influenced, critics charge. The specter of "rationing" health care is raised.

The beleaguered panel members either defend their recommendation or say nothing.
Rational assessment has always had a tough road to travel in the U.S., starting with the dawn of randomized clinical trials, when doctors didn't accept trial results as being valid. But that's another story."

She's absolutely correct. Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

"The current controversy over the task force's report owes much to the media's confusing coverage, some of which has been misinformed, including by TV doctors who ought to know better.

The confusion has been abetted by the American Cancer Society, whose position appeared to have softened, then hardened again, in recent weeks.

There are multiple reasons women are ill-informed about breast cancer. The fault lies primarily with their physicians, the cancer establishment, and the news media--especially the news media. Until coverage of breast cancer rises above the level of scary warnings mixed with heartwarming stories of cancer survivors, women are likely to go on being perplexed."

He calls the task force recommendation a "don't-worry-be-happy-till-you're-50 finding."

He defines "the essential problem with such studies" as "in the end it's a very personal decision."

Exactly. And that was the entire point of the USPSTF recommendation - that women need to weigh the harms and benefits in consultation with their doctors. But Kurtz must not have read that far.

And then he goes on to cite a list of journalists who wrote about their own personal opposition to the recommendations.

But he didn't quote even one person who wrote in a more balanced way about the evidence behind the recommendations. So, while his column was headlined, "A battle over breasts," he didn't present much about "the other side" in this battle.

Then again, Kurtz has exhibited an advocacy stance for the screen-screen-screen mentality in the past in his handling of a friend's promotion of prostate cancer screening.

1. This is all about saving money.

2. This is about rationing.

3. Early detection saves lives.

4. The fact that I or someone I know was saved by a mammogram proves that more testing is better.

5. The shifting recommendations prove that scientists are clueless.

Read his entire column. He's a smart guy and his summary is insightful.

Case in point: this clip on yesterday's NBC Today Show.

In it, Snyderman said: "What we as a population were unwilling to accept - which has become very apparent in the last 48 hours - is that we didn't like the message." Yet she emphasized that the message was what the science shows.

She said HHS secretary Sebelius threw the task force under the bus and oversimplified the message by telling women "keep doing what you're doing."

She said "emotion, anecdote, lobbying, advocacy groups, doctors and patients" led to a political reversal.

She said "This is the role of scientists to take the emotion out of the science. That was their charge - look at the hard numbers and give recommendations back."

While she editorialized on Sebelius, her even-handed comments on the work of the task force stood in sharp contrast to some of what was broadcast on ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox.

There's a nice summary of the history by Charles Bankhead of MedPageToday.com.

Perhaps one of the reasons the task force's recommendations this week caught so many people by surprise is that journalism hasn't done a good enough job of:

• explaining the uncertainties that still exist and always have existed about mammography
• explaining the work of the USPSTF

Gina Kolata of the NYT offers somewhat of a backgrounder/explainer today.

All of their work - how they do it - what they base their recommendations on -who they are - is available online - and has been.

Since they're an independent group of experts from across the country, they have no PR machine like the American Cancer Society does. So it's easy for the ACS to rule the airwaves and the columns when they disagree with something the USPSTF states.

But I think journalists have failed badly in explaining this work. And the harm done to evidence-based medicine this week may be lasting.

"... the rampant, breathless fear-mongering rhetoric that has framed much of the media's response to the recommendations. ...

On ABC's daytime talk show "The View," co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck made the stunning claim that the recommendations were "gender genocide."

So it was refreshing to see someone else - Steven Pearlstein - use it today in the Washington Post. (* Actually, either he or the copy desk butchered the quote, leaving out the "not." Surely they meant well, but the quote and the point makes no sense without it, and indeed, is NOT what the standard line is. I've added it in the following excerpt with a * and hope the Post corrects this soon.)

"I should acknowledge that I have no idea who should and should not get routine mammograms. But I know enough about statistics to say that the issue is not settled just because you know of someone in her 40s whose breast cancer was detected by a mammogram and cured. As economists and medical researchers are fond of saying, the plural of anecdote is *(not) data. ...

As is often the case in such matters, those raising the most fuss were those with greatest financial interest in mammography (the radiologists and the makers of mammography machines) and the disease groups (in this case, the American Cancer Society), which tend to resist recognizing limits on how much time, money and attention is devoted to their cause.

"How many mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and friends are we willing to lose to breast cancer while the debate goes on about the limitations of mammography?" Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, asked in an op-ed article in Thursday's Washington Post. Dr. Brawley cleverly didn't answer his own question, but the clear implication of his question was that the only acceptable number should be zero. And it is that very attitude, applied across the board to every patient and every disease, which goes a long way in explaining why ours is the most expensive, and one of the least effective, health-care systems in the industrialized world."

She said:

"This task force is the only big group that is saying this. There are lots of groups that disagree with this. So for me, a woman in her 40s who has to make this decision, I look at it this way. I say, alright, government task force says I don't necessarily need a mammogram. On the other hand, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists says I should get one. The American Society for Clinical Oncology says I should get one. The American Cancer Society (a chuckle and smirk now appear in her voice and on her voice) say I should get one. I think you can see how that decision - how that weighs out."

No, Elizabeth, I don't see from what you cited how that decision should play out.

Because you haven't explained any evidence to me.

You haven't explained the need for shared decision-making between informed patients and their health care providers.

You've merely drawn a red state/blue state map for me - except that your map was incomplete. What do you mean by "big group"? Do you mean the organizations with big PR machines that usually spin their stories through you?

Because the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Breast Cancer Action, and the National Women's Health Network are among the "little groups" - as you must define them - who support the US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations.

CNN, what have you done to educate viewers on this issue?

What have you done to explain the data?

And why should I care about what Elizabeth Cohen decides?

Why should I care any more about her decision than about the story of women who regret that they ever were screened? (A story she chose not to tell.)

You can hear what Cohen said and how she said it in the clip below from Newsy.com.

You'll also see the comments from Fox News' "Dr. Manny." Perhaps CNN has achieved its goal. In an attempt to catch Fox News in the ratings, it has become just like Fox News.

The effort was led by Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, who leads the PharmedOut (http://pharmedout.org) project at Georgetown University Medical Center to educate physicians about industry influence on prescribing.

The letter states:

"Between bench and bedside lies a path treacherous with ethical quandaries. NIH is the best place to launch and support a scientifically rigorous inquiry into the state of research ethics, industry-academic relationships, and the effect of these relationships on human health. There is currently no identifiable mechanism through which NIH would fund this research.

Your leadership regarding the importance of this issue as one the NIH needs to direct resources towards is essential. We hope to discuss these issues in a face-to-face meeting."

An article on TheScientist.com contains more details.

• a good job of explaining the potential harms of screening
• re-establishes the fact that this is NOT a new debate (by the very fact that it's 5 years old and could have just as easily been 15 years old).

A quote in a New York Times story yesterday:

"Why all of a sudden this change?" said Karen Sun, 41, who was loading her groceries into her car here in Los Angeles. "It feels out of nowhere."

As the Washington Post led with in their story, this has been a decades-long debate. What we have seen in the past 3 days is akin to what happened with the uproar 12 years ago after a NIH Consensus Conference on this issue made a concluding statement that many women - and their politicians - disagreed with.

In an ugly clash between science and politics, confusion reigned.

And now it's happening again.

From the LA Times:

Some Republicans jumped on the report as the kind of government intervention in medical decisions that Obama's healthcare plan would bring.

"This is really the first step toward that business of rationing care based on cost," said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a physician.

Where is the evidence for that? That is fear-mongering rhetoric.

In the Washington Post:

"We can't allow the insurance industry to continue to drive health-care decisions," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who said earlier this year that she had undergone treatment for breast cancer.

Wasserman-Schultz, whose legislation promoting breast cancer education in young women was widely criticized by evidence-based experts, should be forced to produce evidence for her claim as well.

And on ABC last night, a physician was allowed to say - unchallenged - that mammograms pick up early cancers when they need less treatment. If anecdotes are going to rule the day, then that physician should have to counter the anecdotes I've heard from women whose early DCIS or ductal carcinoma in situ - often called "pre-malignant" or "pre-cancerous" - was picked up by mammograms. And the range of treatment options then thrown at them - as aggressive as prophylatic bilateral mastectomy - left the DCIS-diagnosed to wish that they had actually received a diagnosis of invasive cancer because the choices were easier and more clear cut. These are real stories I heard from real women. The story - the discussion - isn't complete without taking into account the experiences of women like that.