I’m sorry, but are our country’s medical agencies smoking something? Just a few days after new breast cancer screening guidelines recommended mammograms only for women 50 and older and declared self-breast exams moot, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is now telling women to delay getting their first pap smear until they are 21 and to get them less often afterwards. This is pretty confusing because, until today, the rule was that women should have their first terribly uncomfortable meeting with the dreaded stirrups shortly after becoming sexual active, and that they should get a pap every year at their annual check-up. So why the change? ACOG says that in young women, HPV—the virus that can lead to cervical cancer—is very prevalent and that the huge majority of women clear the virus on their own, without any medical intervention. They say that there are only one to two cases of cervical cancer a year for every million women between the ages of 15 and 19. But because testing has become so routine, ACOG says that young women who are very unlikely to develop cervical cancer are getting invasive procedures to remove precancerous growths and cells that would clear on their own. And that they’re having complications, like injury to the cervix, that can cause problems if they have a baby. As for recommending less frequent testing, ACOG argues that cervical cancer develops slowly—it can take 10 to 20 years—so can be caught early even with less rigorous testing. [NY Times]
While these arguments sound logical, I have a hard time believing that this can be a good idea. And honestly, it makes me pretty mad. Keep reading »
