he American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging released guidelines yesterday asserting that mammograms should begin at forty for women with an average risk of breast cancer and by thirty for high-risk women. These recommendations contradict those recently submitted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which concluded that screening mammograms for women under fifty cause more harm than good.
"These latest guidelines come from a group of radiologists," says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. "I find this to be a conflict of interest. Who are we going to believe? The report from the USPSTF was completely isolated from politics and emotion, based on statistics, and free from considerations of financial cost, whereas these are people whose livelihood depends on procedures like mammograms."