Cutting The Fat, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

George Lundberg seems to be an intelligent, pragmatic, sensible man. But... ouch. I think suggestions like his are the petri dish from whence comes the stuff of Death Panels. He wants people to stop getting tests and treatments they don't need and probably won't ever - I get that. But hasn't one of the big acknowledgments of this whole brouhaha been that preventing health problems is cheaper than fixing them once they've nearly killed you? How much is a mammography as opposed to a mastectomy?

Another writes:

Ending mammogram screenings for women under 50 with no clinical inclination may be cutting the fat to some, but this policy would have likely resulted in my mom's death. My family had no history of cancer. My mom was fit, active, and ate a healthy diet. She was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer shortly after turning 48. She was diagnosed as the result of a routine mammogram. She has been cancer free for 6 years now. If she had to wait until a lump was noticeable or until she was 50 for that mammogram, who knows if she would have survived.