I looked it up
here
Members of the Task Force***
Members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are Alfred O. Berg, M.D., M.P.H., Chair, USPSTF (Professor and Chair, Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA); Janet D. Allan, Ph.D., R.N., C.S., Vice-chair, USPSTF (Dean and Professor, School of Nursing, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX); Paul S. Frame, M.D. (Tri-County Family Medicine, Cohocton, NY, and Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY); Charles J. Homer, M.D., M.P.H. (Executive Director, National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality, Boston, MA); Mark S. Johnson, M.D., M.P.H. (Associate Professor of Clinical Family Medicine and Chairman Department of Family Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ); Jonathan D. Klein, M.D., M.P.H. (Associate Professor of Pediatrics and of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, NY), Tracy A. Lieu, M.D., M.P.H. (Associate Professor, Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA); Cynthia D. Mulrow, M.D., M.Sc. (Professor of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital, San Antonio, TX); C. Tracy Orleans, Ph.D. (Senior Scientist, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, NJ); Jeffrey F. Peipert, M.D., M.P.H (Director of Research, Women and Infants' Hospital, Providence, RI); Nola J. Pender, Ph.D., R.N. (Professor and Associate Dean for Research, School of Nursing, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI); Albert L. Siu, M.D., M.S.P.H (Professor of Medicine, Chief of Division of General Internal Medicine, and Medical Director of the Primary Care and Medical Services Care Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and The Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY); Steven M. Teutsch, M.D., M.P.H. (Senior Director, Outcomes Research and Management, Merck & Company, Inc., West Point, PA); Carolyn Westhoff, M.D., M.Sc. (Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Public Health, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY); and Steven H. Woolf, M.D., M.P.H. (Professor of Family Medicine, Department of Family Practice, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA).
If anyone is keeping score that is:
oncologist- 0
radiologists- 0
breast cancer surgeons- 0
breast cancer specialist of any kind- 0
anyone that has treated cancer (any cancer) -0
family medicine physicians- 4
pediatricians- 2
ob/gyns- 2
internal medicine physicians- 2
geriatrics- 1
epidemiologists- 1
primary care physicians- 1
nurse practicioner (psychiatry)- 1
nurse practioner (family medicine)- 1
PhD researcher (focus is tobacco use) - 1
************************************************** ********************************
Sorry folks this report card and task force listed above is for the 2002 panel. The current panel is in my correction post below and the rest of this post is a review of the CURRENT panel members, the list above was mistakenly copied from the 2002 panel. Don't worry yourselves, LOL, the current panel scorecard is almost exactly the same. 0 breast cancer, oncology, radiology, you get the idea and sorry for the interruption.......
************************************************** *********************************
I always say if something stinks, check your shoe. What stinkbomb I found is that numerous members of this 16-member panel are currently or have been directly involved with the HMO or health care industry.
This information came directly from
USPSTF
Dr. George Isham, MD is the Chief Health Officer for a major health care provider,
Health Partners. "Dr. Isham is responsible for quality, utilization management, health promotion and disease management, research, and health professionals' education at HealthPartners. He is active in strategic planning and policy issues. He is an experienced primary care clinician and was chair of the Institute of Medicine committee that produced the report,
Priority Areas for National Action: Transforming Health Care Quality." (quote from the Health Partners website)
J. Sanford Schwartz, MD, is the past executive director of the
Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He's also on the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medical Advisory Panel. He was also formerly the Editor of the
American Journal of Managed Care
Diana B. Petitti, MD (the Vice Chair of this panel who said that these recommendation would have no effect on health insurance coverage) was a Senior Scientific Advisor for Health Policy and Medicine at Kaiser Permanente of Southern CA.
Joy Melnikow, M.D is a contributing member of the
California Health Benefits Program Task Force for the University of California's Office of the President and associate medical director of
Healthwise, Inc.
Hmmmmm... I know I am not open-minded nor devoid of paranoia, but if you were to assemble a health care/action committee to review and possibly revise breast cancer screening guidelines for the good citizens of the U.S.A., would you not want SOMEONE on this panel that has treated a breast cancer patient? Would you consult any of these people if you had, or suspected you had breast cancer?? Is it not a conflict of interest, or at least VERY bad taste, to have the health care industry represented (by some means) by at least 25% of this panel and breast cancer specialists make up 0%? And we are supposed to believe there is no motivation here except to better the health of American women overall?
I think this smells like &$#@! (and I am not ranting, just presenting information to share, OK a minor rant at the end here, please forgive my hysteria)
Threaded Mode