It has been but a few short days since the U.S. media heralded findings by the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) that there is insufficient evidence to recommend that some women get regular mammograms. The press reported that the USPSTF is "influential" in setting federal policy. We responded that we only hoped it was true , but, sadly, that hadn't been our experience. The USPSTF has been a lonely voice insisting on quality science to guide policy.
We know nothing of the quality of the science on either side of the mammogram debate, but we do know that when the evidence-based recommendations of the USPSTF come up against political correctness, PC politics wins. That's been the case with the debate over dietary salt.
Thus, it was no surprise that the White House ducked. The NY Times reported that when "the task force recommendations stirred concern among women, and came under fire from lawmakers of both parties, the White House emphasized that they were not binding...."
That's the way the federal government has dealt with the salt debate: politics trumped science. The USPSTF found insufficient evidence to recommend a general reduction in salt intakes, but the powers-that-be blithely ignored this evidence-based conclusion and redoubled its efforts to achieve the impossible: substituting federal recommendations for human physiology. Read all about it .
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