Response to Lynne Varner’s ‘second opinion’

Columnist Lynne Varner has poor arguments for criticizing the new guidelines for breast-cancer screening [“Mammograms: a second opinion,” Opinion, Nov. 18].

Saying they fly in the face of conventional wisdom and long-standing consensus is shortsighted.

Guidelines are, and should be, continually adapted in light of new research and statistical findings. Recent estrogen-therapy findings are also not conflicting medical advice, but another example of the revision of guidelines in light of its association with adverse side effects.

Varner doubts a similar correlation for men would exist.

In fact, tests for prostate cancer also recently came under new guidelines because of false positives and the finding that many of the cancer cases that had been treated would have been so slow growing that they never would have been a problem.

If everyone had yearly MRIs, we might discover more cases of brain cancer, but is that the best use of health-care resources? No.

If we want to control health-care costs, we have to look at the statistics to make these decisions.

— Marilynn Gottlieb, Bainbridge Island

A man’s point of view

I find myself appalled at the recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for women to hold off screening for breast cancer until the age of 50 [“Breast-cancer flap gets political,” News, Nov. 19].

Although I am not a woman, the idea that a government-created group recommends lackadaisical preventive health practices truly scares me.

These sorts of practices can easily be carried over into almost any health issue concerning men and women alike. When President Obama gets his health-care reform, there will be a panel like this on every health topic, helping the government look for ways to cut costs and ration care.

Panel decisions like this will not be mere recommendations, but will become dictated terms in health-care plans. This leaves early testing procedures uncovered, forcing patients to choose between parting with profuse amounts of their own cash or gambling with their lives.

— Donald Bricker, Lake Tapps