Breast cancer guidelines were revised by the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), and many women say that the revisions are "unsafe."
However, most of the same women surveyed grossly overestimate their risk of developing the disease, according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
"Indeed, they have been exposed to consistent and high profile media campaigns, endorsed by medicine and variety of interest groups, that have indoctrinated them into the concepts that mammograms lead to early detection and early detection saves lives," the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The USPSTF said that women shouldn't be getting mammograms until they're at least 50, and that those between 50 and 74 should only have mammograms every two years. The previous guidelines suggested annual screenings for women 40 and older.
The group didn't say that no women under 50 should be screened--it left that decision up to the individual woman and her doctor.
Because the decision has met with controversy since its introduction in 2009, Dr. Autumn Davidson and her colleagues surveyed 247 women in their 40s who came to the hospital for an annual general exam.
