I had the misfortune of watching ABC News lead with the new pap smear guidelines tonight and watched them completely leave the impression that these were GOVERNMENT guidelines (they're not), that these guidelines are harbingers of government RATIONING and that this helps the Republicans in their arguments against health care reform.
Yes, that was the completely misleading lead story on ABC News tonight. I'm livid.
These medical guidelines have nothing to do with the government, the Obama administration, Democrats in Congress or health care reform.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is a "professional association of medical doctors specializing in obstetrics and gynecology in the United States. It has a membership of over 52,000 and represents 90 percent of U.S. board-certified obstetrician-gynecologists." (via wikipedia)
From CBS News (which actually treated this responsibly)
The change by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists comes amid a completely separate debate over when regular mammograms to detect breast cancer should begin. The timing of the Pap guidelines is coincidence, said ACOG, which began reviewing its recommendations in late 2007 and published the update Friday in the journal Obstetrics&Gynecology.
These are part of normal, periodic updates of recommendations issued by the medical community.
Yet anyone watching ABC News tonight would be left with the misleading impression that these are new Obama administration government guidelines. Knowing this would be a mistaken impression, ABC News (which is supposedly in the business of informing people) should have gone out of its way to explain where these recommendations came from. They didn't. They did the opposite. They immediately jumped into a story on the health care reform debate in Congress and Jonathan Karl helpfully (and somewhat gleefully) explained how today's news helps Republicans in their argument against "government rationing", complete with clips of Sen. Kyl railing that "women will die!!!" if Democrats pass their reforms.
I honestly don't know how America can continue to govern itself in any kind of responsible way when:
- one of the two political parties thrives on hysteria and misinformation and has no interest in actually governing
- the news media assists in this and does not see truth-telling or correcting misinformation as part of its role.
Sorry for the weak diary but I'm livid. Will update with transcript and/or video when available.
UPDATE: Here's the link to the ABC video. (h/t Michael D)
UPDATE 2: Let ABC News know how you feel about this. (h/t greenpunx)