The federal Preventive Services Task Force, for one, embodies a minimalist, doubter mind-set.
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There was a lot of controversy over this issue last year, when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued its screening guideline.
Ned Calonge, the Colorado doctor who is chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-sponsored expert panel that evaluates preventive tests.
To determine which services qualify as preventive, government officials relied largely on existing recommendations by three groups, including the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
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The preventive services task force drew criticism last year for recommending that women delay annual mammogram services until age 50, instead of age 40.
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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of nongovernment clinicians who provide evidence-based practice guidelines, recommends against screening men over age 75 for prostate cancer.
In May 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine PSA screening (Prostate-Specific Antigen test to screen Prostate cancer) before being diagnosed as it did not benefit patients.
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Last year, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended people age 65 or older who are considered at risk for falling and potentially breaking bones exercise and take a vitamin D supplement.
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In recommending against PSA tests for early signs of prostate cancer, the United States Preventive Services Task Force has struck another blow for a head-in-the-sand approach to early detection of fatal illnesses.
Screening guidelines have been controversial for decades, but the issue exploded nearly two years ago when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routinely providing the screening for women in their 40s.
The Peripheral Artery Disease Coalition of more than 50 organizations endorses ABI screening, and is lobbying the federal Preventive Services Task Force to review the test with the aim of getting it covered more widely by Medicare.
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Indeed, the findings by the Preventive Services Task Force are underwhelming at best: Of the 60 health screens the group has evaluated, it advises that physicians use only 29--and 10 of those, it says, should be done only at the physician's discretion.
"People forget that there are two sides to screening, " says Dr. Barbara Yawn, director of research at Olmstead Medical Center and a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed group of health care professionals that study and evaluate health screens.
"Another apparently paradoxical finding is that estrogen and progestin impart a small increase in the risks for developing and dying from breast cancer, whereas estrogen alone appears to slightly reduce these risks, " according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force document outlining the draft recommendations.
Because of this, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended that men not even be screened for prostate cancer, since there is such pressure to undergo treatments that, for most men, do not benefit them but may cause them harm in the most personal ways.
As I have discussed in the past, prevention and screening are a significant part of the ACA. Because of the ACA, insurance is required to cover all U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) Grade A and B recommendations, which are services expected to have substantial to moderate net benefits.
In addition, the U.S. Preventive Care Task Force, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, says there's not enough evidence to recommend for or against prostate cancer screening men younger than 75 and recommends against prostate screenings for men 75 or older.
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