Forgotten Sleep

Last week, I climbed onto my soap box about the new recommendations regarding mammograms for women ages 40-49. Angry as I was, I figured that this would be the extent of the devaluation of women’s health.

Wrong.

Just a few days ago, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) released its own set of recommendations regarding Pap smears and cervical cancer. I was shocked to see that the association charged with identifying and maintaining best practices in women’s health would publish guidelines that see to, at best, be dangerous and, at worst, potentially fatal for some women.

At least since before my youth, ACOG has always recommended that women (girls) get their first Pap smears at age 18, regardless of sexual activity. This makes sense in my mind — nothing is likely to be wrong at this stage, so women have a solid baseline examination from which to work for the rest of their lives. Now, however, the new recommendation is that women do not need to have the test until they are 21. By that point, any number of things could’ve changed a woman’s physiology and health. Twenty-one might be barely old enough to drink legally, but it’s too old to start keeping tabs on a woman’s sexual health.

To suggest that women would only need to have Pap smears every other year before age 30 is ludicrous. And leading women to believe it is safe for them to only have a Pap smear every three years after age 30 if they’ve had three normal Pap smears is horrendous.

ACOG has never recommended that women undergo annual Pap smears, but it’s comforting to know that most doctor’s offices have ignored the association’s disregard for preventive care. I have to ask, though, why make recommendations that will potentially harm women, sentencing some to death.

Cancer isn’t necessarily a slow-growing disease. I understand that it can take 10 to 20 years for pre-cancerous cells in the cervix to develop into cancer. That isn’t the truth for everyone, though. I have a serious problem with the medical industry making recommendations against preventive care in the name of the “greater good.” What harm does it do to perform a test that most women expect and have grown accustomed to if maintaining the practice provides peace of mind and a chance for some women to catch cancer early.

Why has the medical industry taken what seems to an aggressive stance in chipping away at services provided to women in our society? Reducing mammograms and cervical cancer screenings will do nothing to improve women’s health, and it has the potential to do much harm. Just because something show “little effectiveness” at pinpointing cancers, that doesn’t mean it needs to be eliminated from the list of offered preventive services.

At this point, I can only see that the “benefit” would be to the insurance companies. Rather than paying out expected amounts annually to cover these possibly life-saving tests, insurers would be able to hold on to that cash. Helping insurance companies by sacrificing women…yes, this is what we need to be doing.

Thank goodness I life in an area with healthcare providers who are unlikely to take these ACOG suggestions as anything more than asinine opinion.