First Pap test can be delayed

[Are_grits_groceries]

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.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/19/AR2009111904743.html?hpid=topnews

I have no idea whether the new guidelines about mammograms and pap smears have any merit. However, they couldn't have been issued at a worse time.

By being introduced during the partisan and rancorous health care reform chaos, those who issued them have assured that they will be caught up in the political storm. Both sides eye them warily as in some way an attempt to further one agenda or the other.

I doubt if they will ever be looked at with a somewhat clear eye. I wonder about the people who wanted to release them. If they thought they would get attention, they were right. I don't think it is the kind they wanted.

[Chemisse]

1. I find this suspicious

It has the same rational as the new mammogram recommendations.

What's next? Regular blood pressure checks discouraged by heart health group? Well child visits a waste of money?

Perhaps it is just the timing.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I have no idea.

It's the wrong time to do this. Any truth is lost in the fog of Orrin Hatch's holy war.

[Chemisse]

3. I guess I could understand this if it was linked with the papillovirus vaccine

If they had said the new guidelines were due to lower risk for those who are vaccinated.