White woman, at my 43rd year of life, a snapshot of triple negative breast cancer, caught on a mammogram prior to spreading beyond. Able to write this today, thanks to a MAMMOGRAM and aggressive cancer treatment. (CMF chemo & radiation) Just saying. I am now 52 years old.

My daughter is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed at 39. We had no particular reason to suspect cancer but she has carried for oncology patients and is a believer in early mammograms. She had to hold a lot of feet to the fire to get one and thank God she persisted.

The mass was tiny, it would need have been found by any other means until it was life-threatening. She has a great team of healers who take no prisoners, so to speak. They move fast and are aggressive.

If breast cancer killed men, they'd be recommended for 20 year olds.

I had a diagnostic mammogram at 35 due to my doctor finding a small lump in one breast at my annual appt. My insurance company would not even pay for the mammography tech to give me a mammogram on both sides. They would only due the affected side. So far, so good, but come on! If women are finding lumps in their breasts in their thirties, they should be having routine mammography at that age.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force no longer advises women in their 40s to get routine screening mammograms.

It all makes sense. Not doing mammograms has been proven to reduce the instances of detected cancer. No one suspected that mammograms were a major caused of cancer until now.

Mammograms for forty-something year old patients would clearly detect more cancers. I think the reason behind the USPSTF cutting out that recommedation was that screening women so young creates a lot of problems--namely, false positive tests that lead to a lot of stress and unnecessary biopsies.

Clearly, its a risk benefit situation, and I don't know the exact answer, but its not because the govt is sexist or hates women

They don't recommend routine prostate cancer screening EVER

I don't believe the gov't. hates women, but I do believe we are being "groomed" for rationed health care. I am a 49 year old woman, and my doctor has been referring me for mammograms since I was 40. She doesn't agree wth the new guidelines.

Personally I go for a thermogram as it detects the blood supply of a cancer tumor long before the tumor develops all without putting cancer causing radiation into perfectly healthy breast tissue and increasing my chances of cancer each time.

We are being groomed by insurance companies who have great lobbist on capital hill! When health care laws are passed saying mammograms must be paid for by your insurance company the age will have been raised thus saving the big greedy, wealthy insurance companies money!

of course the lobbyist for the wealthy insurance companies want the age changed. When national health care takes efffect it will save them tons of money because your insurance company will be required to pay for your mammogram (preventive care). The older the women the less they will have to pay out.

if you really want a mammogram earlier than the age your insurance company agrees to start paying at, you always have the option of negotiating a cash rate and paying for it yourself. at my medium-sized, local hospital in Southern California, this cost me $100 cash. (and I am not 'wealthy', by the way.)

people have become so brainwashed to the idea that 'if your insurance won't pay you can't have it' that they are not capable of realizing that there are many procedures that they can have anyway- by negotiating a cash price for the procedure. the majority of providers out there are happy to accept good, old-fashioned spendin' cash. this is how people without insurance and who take responsibility for themselves navigate the health care system.

 The trouble with the University of Missouri study, at least as described in this article, is that it doesn't clarify whether many or most women in the "non-mammogram group" had not actually gotten mammograms in the past.  Mammography only modestly reduces the breast cancer death rate, because the cancers that are a serious threat to life are the aggressive fast-growing kinds, which can be too small to detect on one mammogram yet already metastasized at the time of the next mammogram 12 months (by U.S. custom) later.  Some of those aggressive tumors will be detected in the interim, as the woman notices a steadily enlarging lump or other suspicious symptoms, and would in this study be classed in the "non-mammogram group."  Since fast-growing tumors are harder to treat and have a worse prognosis, the results of this study might be similar even if the entire study population had had regular mammograms. 

A routine mammagram did not detect one of my two breast cancers. It was only when I got an ultrasound to check on the "suspicious area" that the larger, more invasive cancer was found. It is deep in the chest wall where traditional mammograms apparently don't do such a great job.

I'm now a firm believer of both mammograms AND ultrasound testing. Since I have very dense breasts I never would have found either tumors.

 I for one will continue to get routine mammograms annually. The radiation is still way way less than what you would get flying in an airplane. I don't care if my insurance pays for it or not.  Mammograms are still the best way by far to find breast cancer early.