ABSTRACT
In 1998, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study saying that the number of false positives, or false alarm s, resulting from mammogram screening was unacceptably high (Elmore et al., 1998). Shortly after the national media covered this news, a Midwest radiologist attended a neighborhood party. He spent the evening responding to questions generated by an Associated Press story (Haney, 1998), which had been on the front page of the local paper. Some party guests interpreted the news to mean that mammography was unreliable and that obtaining mammograms was pointless. Others interpreted the news cynically. Mammograms are money-making ventures for hospitals, they reasoned. It is not surprising that these tests are given repeatedly, perhaps far more often than necessary.
