Talk:United States Preventive Services Task Force

AMA resolution, House bill

the AMA makes a lot of resolutions that don't actually do anything. I am loath to include them unless there is significant RS coverage of this fact, which I expect there may be. The bill in question also likely has coverage in RS that can paint it as a response to the PSA test controversy. I do not have time to search for either. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 01:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what "RS" refers to. You have to allow some indication of the fact that many experts feel the USPSTF process, and its opinions specifically in oncology, are flawed. I again call out the existing text in the breast cancer section.Drcoop (talk) 18:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

"RS" refers to one of our core policies, "use reliable sources" -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 18:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The breast cancer language and references are from secondary, reliable sources. I would have no quarrel with adding primary sources so long as there were existing secondary sources to establish notability, and feel that makes the article better overall, but referencing primary sources directly should be done judiciously, if at all. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 18:39, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The ideal source would be a review article or book (with a reputable publisher) that talked about the USPSTF in detail, perhaps covering the organization's entire history, rather than a 'political' source in response to a particular and recent decision. The problem with single-issue responses is that they tend to be intemperate. For example, a lot of people were angry about the USPSTF's recommendation on breast cancer and frightened that they would be unable to get the screening that they wanted, but it's calmed down since then, the sky didn't fall, and most women now seem to be following their personalized medicine approach rather than the one-size-fits-some model previously recommended.

A general source would be more likely to avoid the pitfalls of a source that is complaining about a particular new decision. I wonder if anything like that has been published. Have either of you looked for something like that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't able to find anything independent or anything that could be considered RS. Most of what i saw was responses about this or that guideline, with sometimes additional criticism of the whole endeavor, almost always by physicians or other advocacy groups, with the occasional blog. It's still a lot of search results, and i didnt go through more than a few hundred or so, but that's what i got so far. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 06:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Reccomendations Summary

The article covers the controversial decisions, but there are many other important recommendations that didn't have the public fuss.

• CT for Lung Cancer
• Colorectal cancer using fecal occult blood testing, sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy in adults, beginning at age 50

Perhaps the article should list only the Grade A Recommendations.

http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Name/recommendations

Timetraveler3.14 (talk) 01:20, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Documenting USPSTF findings

What are the thoughts regarding the documenting of USPSTF's recommendations for and against?

There is this section, currently, which says rather vaguely: "The USPSTF has evaluated many interventions for prevention and found several have an expected net benefit in the general population." The footnote to the source page (where many recommendations are listed) seems to me an obscure solution. There are in fact 50 evaluations resulting in grades A & B (for screening). ( Here's their official page, filtered for recommendations.)

It appears a few people have (randomly) added things (both for and against) that they care about. Compare the sections on "Mammography recommendations" (recommended) vs. "Prostate cancer screening" (not recommended).

I'm sure many articles face this dilemma: how much is enough; what is too much?

Does anyone know a "Wikipedia standard approach" to situations like this? Justapersona ^talk 16:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Prostate cancer screening section

Doc James, Jytdog, CFCF, and others objected to this kind of content on other pages. Therefore, I have self-reverted for now. See United States Preventive Services Task Force#Prostate cancer screening. The editor who objects the strongest wrote "this is a mess, and I am not playing this game". QuackGuru (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Added the 2017/2018 draft.

I disagree with your changes. Here we should describe the position of the USPSTF. The position of the person who invented the test and still has significant financial COI is not notable here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:57, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Breast cancer screening overhaul

I made this major change to the breast cancer screening section today. (Due to some sloppy formatting on my part, I had to make one more minor edit to what is now the current version of the article.)

The prior version had a long discussion of the 2009 recommendations and no mention of subsequent updates in 2016 and again this year (2024). Most of the references were to news articles that had dead links—the referenced articles no longer exist at the URLs provided.

I initially considered removing this entire section. The article has dedicated sections for breast cancer screening, prostate cancer screening, and some miscellaneous recommendations. The USPSTF has 107 published recommendations. It is odd for an encyclopedia to call out a few of them. This gives the impression that they have only published a handful of recommendations in all these years.

I do recall the 2009 breast cancer recommendations getting a fair amount of attention. One could make the argument this warrants some mention in this article. I did not take the time to locate news coverage from 2009 but I imagine one could still find appropriate articles discussing public reaction to the change if this is felt to be important. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 17:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)