Word: smear
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...House political operatives to exploit them as an illustration of the machinations of our predecessors and the difficulties we inherited. But such an attitude seemed to me against the public interest: our system of government would surely lose all trust if each President used the process of declassification to smear his predecessors...
Critics charge that the law practically invites opponents to smear high officials by making charges that, although false, cannot be disproved during a preliminary investigation. Defenders of the law argue that in some cases only exoneration by a special prosecutor can free a Government leader of the suspicion that allegations against him were covered up. But Justice officials last week were admitting that the very appointment of a special prosecutor would convince many Americans that Jordan had done something wrong...
...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...
Then too, say the critics, the test is not highly accurate. Primarily because the physician may take an inadequate smear, some 20% to 30% of tested women who may have an 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...
Beyond U.S. borders, others have come to similar conclusions. A medical task force in Canada studied the effects of the annual Pap smear and two years ago reported that the results did not warrant the costs. Their recommendation: at age 18 any woman who has had sex should have her first Pap test. If it is negative, she should wait a year and have a second test. If that too is negative, then she should be screened only once every three years until age 35, then once every five years to age 60. If the test is still negative, there...