*sigh* First mammograms, now this
The ACOG now recommends cervical cancer screening at 21, and says women don't require annual exams
Thoughts?
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I think there is literally some evil doer (an 80s style evil doer dressed in mostly purple and being HORRIBLY OBVIOUS about his evil doing) sitting up somewhere working to reduce the population of women.
There is no freakin' way that this shit would get done without someone actively trying and with the specific goal of destroying women.
I would say that I will continue to get yearly exams no matter what, except that may be blocked if my insurance decides, hey, paying for yearly exams when they aren't REQUIRED is bullshit (which is pretty much guaranteed to happen if this shit goes any further). Pay for that shit out of your own pocket! And my mighty need to keep myself cancer free may be stopped by my lack of money...
I guess instead of Captain Planet maybe we need Captain XX, defender of justice for women and their lady bits. Because that is the only way to defeat these types of evil doers, brightly colored named super heroes who are summoned by a multicultural team of rag tag do gooders. 'Cause apparently stating the freakin' obvious isn't doing shit to stop that crap.
My thought is actually that this is great-I've never had an abnormal pap, have no family history of cervical cancer and am young enough that abnormalities generally clear themselves up. why then should I have to get a pap every year to get bc? That's a bullsh-- policy to make women's health seem delicate and keep them under "compliant" because after all, am I really going to risk a baby?(I wish I was that brave, but frankly, the idea of being pregnant is scary to me). Unlink women from the doctors office. They'll be fine.
I respectfully disagree. Unfortunately, not everyone uses condoms, and not everyone is honest about their sexual history. Paps don't necessarily have to do with fertility or babies or whatever, they're about protecting women's health. What if your abnormality doesn't happen to clear? From a purely biological standpoint, most STIs are way worse for women than for men in terms of threatening their health (and I'm not just talking fertility here). The inconvenience is well worth it when weighed against the risk involved with letting cervical cancer sit and not get detected early.
and nowhere do these guidelines say that if you are in a higher risk category, or symptomatic that you can't get more screening. these are substituting for a doctor. and they aren't denying you anything. Merely pointing out that for healthy people more screening is not always better. which is what worries me about so much of the response to this-does it not matter that women are getting their cervicies frozen and treated, and later not being able to get pregnant, for something that generally clears up? this overmedicalizaion of women's bodies doesn't worry you?
When you say that not everyone uses condoms and not everyone is truthful about their sexual history, that's not the doctor's responsibility to find out if they're lying. The only way that patients can have the best care possible is if they're honest. I told my doctor that I'm not sexually active, so therefore she says there's no need for me to get pap tests yet. If I had to get one simply because the doctor didn't believe me, I'd be pretty pissed off.
Honestly, I do like these guidelines, because seriously, what's the point of getting a test done every single year when nothing has changed. If it's been proven that every 2 years is enough, why not go with that. Granted, everyone is different, which is why patients should talk to their doctors about it before just going with the guidelines...there are always exceptions.
This was even more important than changing the mammogram recommendations, as the treatment for suspected cervical cancer is quite hazardous to long-term function. What's more, they don't even mention anxiety here; it's all about potential damage to the uterus or a developing fetus. While that's not a problem if you don't want to have children anyway, it is a real, concrete concern to young women who do plan on reproducing.
It sounds like they are investing a lot of time and money into analyzing how they treat women, and discovering that many practices that they assumed were useful are actually harmful, and thus, coming out with guidelines that will best help women receive good care. I hope they continue to do this, especially focusing on how they treat minority women, and come up with more and more revisions to the traditional assumptions.
I don't necessarily plan on reproducing, and I get paps once a year (or more) due to my concerns for my health. I cannot get the HPV vaccine and I am concerned about having cervical cancer. Too many people close me have contracted HPV and/or have developed cervical cancer. Honestly, the inconvenience well outweighs the risk. Catch it early and it's not too much of a problem, but let it fester and we're talking major, major problems and complications.
i think it makes a lot of sense... as long as we keep educating girls and boys about safe sex, and vaccinate both girls and boys against the HPV. the first step to reducing cervical cancer is practicing safe sex so you don't get exposed to HPV. next comes screening.
i do think that more sexually active women should get more screenings. that should be a part of a healthy sex life. but monogamous women or women who are more "inactive" can get less frequent screenings.
I'm not big on conspiracy theories...but any one find it funny that now that it looks like we might have a government funded national healthcare plan all these "preventative" procedures are getting advice to cut back?
HUH?
In all seriousness though, I don't see how screening LESS is a good thing, how ever, I also motherfriken HATE paps.
It does seem a little odd. More like a lot odd. True, more knowledge has come along in the last few years, but knowledge goes nowhere without application of that knowledge, and a lot of people feel they are invincible and don't need to take that knowledge into consideration and apply it.
I also echo something pmsrhino about the insurance issue, about potentially having to pay for some exams out-of-pocket because insurance will only cover the recommended two or three years. As my family history is particularly tricky when it comes to reproductive health of women(on both sides of the family), this is a concern. I'll be keeping my eyes open on this issue, for sure.
you're not a conspiracy theorist. i thought of the exact same thing when the new study about mammograms came out.
i'm definitely concerned about OVER-treatment, and that's a valid concern that comes with screening. i guess if we could still screen, but make better clinical judgments about when to treat and when to not treat this wouldn't be a problem.
i'm cautious of these new recommendations, but i think some feminists' reactions to these reports of less screening are a bit knee-jerk. why are they assuming that women got good healthcare in the first place? screening is very important, but in american healthcare we ignore even more important aspects of health. unfortunately many of this has to do with our capitalist system which doesn't understand the benefit of allowing paid leave, vacation time, etc.
one area where i hope coverage will shift to cheaper but healthier options is midwifery and non-pharmacologic ways to aid childbirth.
*sigh*... annual screening (from what I can gather anecdotally) is an outlier in the medical world.
In Aus its every 2 years and some other places (which I fail to recall precisely) its 3yrs.
With any medical testing the risk of false positives must be weighed with the overall risk of testing. The more you test, the higher the likelihood of false positives, the more unnecessary medical procedures are performed.
Not to mention the anecdotes I hear constantly through the blogosphere of women being told they *MUST* have a pap to receive hormonal birth control. THAT is coercion plain and simple. THAT is infantalising and reducing woman to people with tiny lady-brains who can't possibly make decisions for themselves. /drift --> Would a man's request for viagra be denied if he refused to have his cholesterol measured?
Also consider the possible differences and the reasons for said differences in systems where health is not for profit.....
I told my (old) GP that I needed to be checked every year (the standard is two years in australia) because my mother, great aunt and cousin have all had cerivical cancer, and the oncologist that my mother had told her that all the women in my family have to get checked once yearly, and she was all " no need for that, just every two years like every one else" I was unimpressed
All I can say is thank goodness this rule passed! No other country requires yearly pap smears. The changing guidelines for both mammograms and pap smears are not one page, one sentence "Do this" memos. Guidelines are often over 10 pages long, delineating what makes an individual "high risk" who needs more screening. (Age, other health status, behaviors, pains, etc.)
And not every physician follows guidelines - some screen everyone yearly for everything, because that's how they feel comfortable practicing.