Full Disclosure.  We are not doctors and don’t play them on TV.  We are not healthcare economists.  We are not women.  So what can we add to the storm of opinion whirling around the new proposed guidelines for breast cancer screening?  Well, we are communicators and we do recognize a communications train wreck when we see one.

So what were those crazy members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force thinking when they dropped the screening bomb on the world last week?  It appears they were thinking big scientific thoughts.  And, yes, they were probably thinking clearly.

After a meta-analysis of tons of data on the risks and rewards of screening at various ages, the task force concluded that screening of women under age 40 is not justified by the results.  But, you say, what about the women whose lives are saved by early screening?  Are they to be sacrificed on the altar of cost-cutting?

Well, consider this.  Some women in their thirties die of breast cancer.  And some in their twenties.  But we don’t hear anyone – even the “death panel” Republicans calling for screening of all women over  age 20.  Why?  Because it would be a colossally stupid thing to do.  It would cost a fortune.  It would produce false positives.  It would lead to some women receiving surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation who, in fact, were never at risk for dying of cancer.  All the things the task force said about women in their forties being screened.

So, why the brouhaha?  Because there is the perception of something being taken away.  And it is very easy to stir up any group – particularly in today’s difficult economic environment – by telling them that they are about to give something up.  Particularly if it can be couched as a life-and-death issue.  And most particularly if it can be portrayed as the opening salvo in a health care rationing scheme.

But, back to the task force and what they were thinking.  They were thinking like scientists, not politicians or PR executives.  After all, that’s how they were asked to think.  Aggregate and analyze the data and tell us what you recommend.  But, where were the politicians and the PR executives?  Haven’t we learned over the years that you don’t let scientists out in public by themselves?  They speak the truth!  (At least as they see it.)   They don’t spin.

Worse, they don’t even think about timing.  This study has been going on for years.  In fact, breast cancer screening studies have been going on for decades and the recommendations have been about as consistent as recommendations to take or, no wait, don’t take Vitamin E supplements.  Did they have to release it dead smack in the middle of the most important health care debate ever?  A debate rife with talk of rationing and death panels?  And, not to be outdone, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists rushed out a few days later to advise women to delay their first Pap test for cervical cancer.  Brilliant.

We are not suggesting a return to the bad old days of the Bush Administration and cooking the scientific books.  Just a little prudence in the timing and the wording of public release of good science.

We can hear the scientists and doctors from the task force and ACOG complaining, “But we’re not politicians;  Don’t expect us to act like them.”  Wrong.  When you participate in a high-profile political discussion that has the potential to affect not just women in their forties but tens of millions of Americans of all ages, you better learn how to think politically or find someone who can help you.  That’s what they should have been thinking.