Cancer and class

[IndianaGreen]

The same reactionary premises that underlie the USPSTF’s recommendations on mammograms drive the Obama administration’s cost-cutting plan. The claim is that there are only “finite resources” for health care. This in a country where the richest ten percent monopolizes seventy percent of the national wealth, where Wall Street CEOs routinely award themselves eight-digit compensation packages, and the government spends trillions on bailing out the banks and waging neo-colonial wars.

Cancer and class

19 November 2009

Monday’s recommendation by a US government panel that women under the age of 50 not undergo annual mammogram screenings should serve as a warning on the future of health care in America. The announcement by the United States Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) will lead to thousands of preventable breast cancer deaths. The panel’s recommendations will serve as a model for the rationing of services throughout the health care system, and for further attacks on the social conditions of broad sections of the population.

Government statistics show that of women who are now 40 years old, 1.44 percent will get breast cancer over the next decade. The USPSTF acknowledges that mammograms have reduced the death rate for women aged 40 to 49 by 15 percent. The panel also notes that since 1990, breast cancer deaths have declined by 2.3 percent per year for women overall, and by 3.3 percent for women aged 40 to 49, attributing the decrease to a combination of mammography and improved treatment. Since the inception of screening mammography, deaths from advanced breast cancer have decreased by 30 percent.

Nevertheless, the government task force concludes that these numbers are not sufficient to warrant breast cancer screenings for this age group. It asserts that the benefits are outweighed by what it claims to be harmful effects associated with mammograms.

The panel further recommends that for women aged 50 to 74, screenings should be done on a biennial rather than an annual basis.

For all the scientific-sounding jargon about “cost-risk” analysis, the real impetus behind this astounding and misanthropic proposal is the desire to cut costs for the government and the insurance companies.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pers-n19.shtml

[LWolf]

1. If the current debate were really about

making sure Americans have equal access to high quality, affordable CARE, there would be no effort to limit screenings.