breast cancer anecdote

Cut to 2009 and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government appointed entity that, in its new guidelines, tells us that women need not get regular mammograms until they're 50 and older -- and that those specific self-exam instructions are no longer recommended. Of course they have a study to back this up, a piece of information that always reminds me of the fellow who said Washington will spend $5 million on a study to prove a jackass has three ears, if three ears is what politicians need for a jackass to have. Are these new guidelines a push to ration healthcare in a time of increasingly unsustainable healthcare spending? Only a fool would completely discard such a notion. Then again, maybe it's not politics. Maybe it's just whatever the opposite of common sense is.