First breast exams, now pap smears! ACOG now saying women in their 20s can have a pap smears every two years instead of annually

drobamasteinRationing part 2? And the Senate healthcare bill vote isn’t even until Saturday! The second wave of “what’s to come” is from the ACOG – American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is now saying women younger than 30 should undergo cervical cancer screening once every two years instead of an annual exam. And ACOG is saying women of the age 30 and older can be screened once every three years!

Dr. Thomas Herzog of Columbia University tells Fox News:

“Overtreatment of minor abnormal pap tests in young women and adolescents can lead to consequences such as preterm labor in some cases. It increases the risk,” said Dr. Thomas Herzog of Columbia University in New York, who is chairman of an ACOG subcommittee on gynecologic cancers.

“Preterm delivery has become a huge problem in the United States that has potential serious consequences for the unborn fetus,” said Dr. Jennifer Milosavijevic, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, who supports the guideline changes.

“These new guidelines will allow us to avoid doing unnecessary procedures on the sexually active adolescent female,” she said in an e-mail.

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November 20, 2009 · Filed Under ObamaCARE


Comments

  • brendan

    These procedures, namely bx’s performed that can affect labour are LEEP biopsies. Leep biopsies are indicated only in cases of severe dysplasia. When the dysplasia is low grade, the biopsie performed have liitle to know risk of complicating the birth process. In other words, if you don’t take the severe cancer out, you die. Is this a valid reason to deny young females the pap test. Its political and they really don’t have a clue about the ramifications if these guidlines are accepted by practitioners. Health care reform equals cost savings and rationing, equals death to those unfortunate young women that I personally see having pre-cancerous lesions almost daily.