Mammogram guidelines spark debate over health bill 
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers broke along party lines on a new aspect of the health care debate Sunday as a former National Institutes of Health chief urged women to ignore guidelines that delay the start of breast cancer screenings.
Republicans pointed to the guidelines as evidence the Democrats' proposals for a health care overhaul would yield limits on mammograms and a rationing of care. Democrats dismissed those worries and said Republicans were stoking fears without facts.
Under the Democratic plan, a new independent institute would advise the health secretary. However, the health secretary would not be required to deny or extend coverage in a government-backed health plan based on recommendations from the institute.
Historic health care bill clears Senate hurdle
WASHINGTON — Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.
The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.
The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.
Cervical cancer screening can wait till 21, group says
Women can delay having their first Pap test for cervical cancer until they turn 21 and many can wait longer to go back for follow-up screenings, according to new guidelines released Friday by a major medical group.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommended the change after concluding that more frequent testing did not catch significantly more cancers and often resulted in girls and young women experiencing unnecessary stress, anxiety and sometimes harmful treatments because of suspicious growths that would not cause problems.
"We really felt that the downsides of more frequent screening outweighed any benefits," said Alan G. Waxman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of New Mexico who led the revision of the guidelines. "More testing is not always more intelligent testing."
Mammogram Debate Took Group by Surprise
The federal Preventive Services Task Force, the group that created a political firestorm this week with its recommendation that women get less-frequent mammograms, was created to be insulated from politics.
Yet, some observers say, its apolitical nature may have made it naïve about just how strongly Congress; some professionals, like radiologists; advocacy groups, like the American Cancer Society; and members of the public would react.
As soon as the task force’s guidelines were released on Monday, recommending against routine mammograms for most women in their 40s and saying women should consider having the screening test every other year instead of annually, the maelstrom erupted.
Sebelius's cave-in on mammograms is a setback for health-care reform
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did a marvelous job this week of undermining the move toward evidence-based medicine with her hasty and cowardly disavowal of a recommendation from her department's own task force that women under 50 are probably better off not getting routine annual mammograms.
This is an old issue that has not only sharply divided the medical community for more than 20 years, but also taps into deep resentments among women who, over the years, have felt neglected by a male-dominated medical establishment. And there's no doubt that the advisory panel's recommendation came at a politically inconvenient time, just as Congress enters the crucial final phase in a health reform debate in which opponents have successfully stoked fears of medical rationing.
But rather than showing the leadership necessary to lead a grown-up national discussion on how to eliminate unnecessary or wasteful procedures, Sebelius simply disowned the task force and ran for political cover. Just as the hysteria over "death panels" killed any chance that Medicare recipients and their patients might be encouraged to engage in an intelligent conversation about end-of-life care before it becomes an issue, the mammogram brouhaha is likely to set back efforts to dramatically increase research into what really works and what doesn't, and use the results to revamp the way medical care is delivered and paid for.
Breast Cancer Screening Policy Won't Change, US Officials Say
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration distanced itself Wednesday from new standards on breast cancer screening that were recommended this week by a federally appointed task force, saying government insurance programs would continue to cover routine mammograms for women starting at age 40.
As the task force recommendations stirred concern among women, and came under fire from lawmakers of both parties, the White House emphasized that they were not binding on either physicians or insurers. Administration officials also fired back against Republicans who argued that the recommendations illustrated the dangers of an expanded government role in medical decision making.
Democrats on Capitol Hill acknowledged that the recommendations, in the midst of negotiations over a health care overhaul, had handed Republicans a vivid new way to raise the specter of rationing.
AP IMPACT: Gripes about swine flu vaccine abound
ATLANTA — When the nation's swine flu vaccination program began in early October, health officials predicted it was going to be "messy." They were right. The program has been plagued with problems and information gaps:
_Health officials have been terrible at predicting when and how much vaccine would be available. Only about 44 million doses have been shipped so far. Initially, officials said more than three times that would be out by now.
_At times vaccine shipments have been inexplicably lopsided. For example, smaller counties in Illinois and California have received the same amount delivered to counties with seven times as many people.
US officials defend swine flu vaccination plan
* Senators call U.S. response confusing, misinformed
* Officials say decisions must be made at local level (Adds HHS comment paragraphs 12-14)
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
Sebelius: US policy on mammograms 'unchanged'
A top Obama administration official on Wednesday appeared to try to distance the federal government from controversial new guidelines recommending fewer women routinely undergo mammograms to screen for breast cancer.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a written statement, said the new guidelines had "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country" and stressed that they were issued by "an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who . . . do not set federal policy and . . . don't determine what services are covered by the federal government."
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a 16-member panel of experts assembled by the Health and Human Services Department's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, on Monday recommended women in their 40s stop having routine mammograms and instead discuss whether to get the exams individually with their doctors. The panel also recommended women in their 50s get mammograms routinely only every two years instead of annually. The panel argued that the benefits of doing the exams more frequently were outweighed by the harms caused by false alarms, which cause anxiety, unnecessary biopsies and sometimes unneeded treatment.
HHS says US policy on mammograms unchanged
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. health officials on Wednesday distanced themselves from controversial new breast cancer screening guidelines that recommend against routine mammograms for healthy women in their 40s and said federal policy on screening mammograms has not changed.
In a move likely to reassure American women, U.S. House and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that issued the guidelines on Monday does not set federal policy and does not affect what services the government will pay for.
Critics of the new guidelines said they would lead to more cancer deaths and expressed fear insurance companies would use them to justify denying coverage for mammograms to women in their 40s.
