Researchers estimated Wednesday that mammograms caused more than 1 million American women over the past three decades to be diagnosed with early-stage breast cancers that would not have proved fatal if left undetected and untreated — a controversial finding sure to provoke more heated debate over the benefits of the screenings.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, concluded that these women were “overdiagnosed” and “overtreated” because there was not a corresponding decline in the diagnosis of tough-to-cure breast cancers that have already spread. The authors said mammography has saved few lives.
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So let me get this straight. Because false positives may cause some women to be upset and because those false positives also cost money, we should let other women die of breast cancer? Welcome to the brave new world of ObamaCare.