Word: foltz
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...seems incredible to me that Public Health Researcher Foltz and Epidemiologist Kelsey, described in your story "Flap About Pap" [Nov. 13], would put down the Pap smear on the basis of "considerable expense." This relatively simple test, which can detect cancer, costs only about $6. Further, if the test does not detect cancerous conditions 25% to 30% of the time, isn't this all the more reason to have checkups annually and not every three to five years...
American women have been urged since the early 1950s to have an annual Pap (named for its inventor, Dr. George Papanicolaou) smear as a screening test for cervical cancer. That recommendation has now been challenged. Public Health Researcher Anne-Marie Foltz of New York University and Epidemiologist Jennifer Kelsey of Yale University charge that the test became entrenched as a yearly health measure before its merits could be established. At best, they say, institution of the annual Pap test has been "a dubious policy success...
...atypical or cancerous condition erroneously receive a normal report. One study shows that because the condition of the cells is sometimes misinterpreted by the laboratory, another 7% of tested women who are in good health are told they have suspicious smears, after which a biopsy is often recommended. To Foltz and Kelsey, such statistics at the very least indicate that the Pap test is being overused at considerable expense to the public; the cost of mass annual screening, including office visit charges for women seeing their gynecologists solely for the annual test, runs in the millions...