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

[glowing]

1. This is bad advice.. My first pap smear was when I was 16.. and so were

all of my friends.. Had my friend at 18 not gotten hers, her doctors would not have detected the abnormal pre-cancerous cells to treat that came from her pap test. AND if you are sexually active with different partners.. you need at least a yearly check up to make sure everything looks ok... The breast cancer screening I understand.. the radiation that is recieved during a mamogram is a lot for a fiberous tissue... My Doc told me never to have a mamogram.. to do a different type of test that screens for cancer.. and I've had to check on something I thought might have been a lump.. it was nothing.. but that's why I was told NOT to EVER have a mamogram.. it would more likely give me cancerous cells than detect them with my type of breast. The pap smear directions are just plain stupid.

[tonysam]

2. Again the WSWS is engaging in specious reasoning

There is no "conspiracy" here between government policy and what a panel recommends on an issue which has been debated for DECADES.

The WSWS is lying.

[IndianaGreen]

3. And there was no secret deal between the White House and PhRMA

or so was the Kool-Aid flavour of the month at the time.

[winyanstaz]

4. more war on women and womens rights........