Monday Monday...So good to A9586D

A couple of quick items:

•  Breast density bill comes to a vote in rules committee on Monday! That's the last stop before it comes to the assembly floor! Then it comes to a vote in the senate . If you have not done so, call your assembly member and your state senator. Extra credit: contact Governor Cuomo with the bill # A9586D/S6769B in the subject. He's the one who has to sign bill for it to become law.
• Note the bill's new name: A9586D/S6769B.
• I keep threatening an upcoming major network news interview on this legislation. It's finally happening Monday morning. Just in time. I'll let you know the air date & time as soon as I find out. (I'll also reveal the network, of course.)
• New Jersey's breast density bill heads to Senate.
• I've corrected the link in my earlier posts, but in case you were not able to hear it, you can listen JoAnn Pushkin's interview on Brian Lehrer/WNYC about the legislation last week here.

And now your moment of zen:

"Notifying women directly of their breast density runs the risk of giving a false sense of security to women who are told their breast tissue is not dense.”--lobbyist for the American College of Radiologists (ACR) last year in opposition to similar Florida legislation (not yet passed).  

Confused?  That's because it's illogical, but try to follow for a second. What the ACR is trying to say is that it is perfectly OK to impart a false sense of security to women with dense breasts to avoid the risk that women with far less risk of misdiagnosis won’t be overconfident in their negative mammogram results. It's insulting to all women (yet another version of the oft-heard "they can't handle the truth" argument), while as always throwing women with dense breasts under the bus.


Thankfully, the New York State Radiological Society has come out in support of this legislation and there are signs that the ACR is evolving from their previous knuckle-dragging attitude on breast density notification. Can we speed up this evolution? Otherwise women will continue to be unnaturally selected by bad mammogram screening protocols.