Feeling The Heat, Obama Administration Distances Itself From Mammogram Study

Ah yes, Hope and Change, promises to "end the politicization of science". We'll go where the science takes us. Right. So we'd expect the Obama Administration to come out fully in support of the findings of the independent US Preventive Services Task Force, right?

Not so fast, partner. Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius has ridden in to assure us all that the federal government will continue to sanction ridiculous defensive medicine and wasteful procedures that have little total impact on breast cancer survival rates, tell us that the new study "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country," and she stressed that they were issued by "an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who . . . do not set federal policy and . . . don't determine what services are covered by the federal government."

No comment on the content or conclusions of the study. Just the first step in discrediting a truly expert panel by stressing they were "outside" the policy making process (good thing too, as we all know the real experts are right there in the Obama Team). Step two in discrediting the study comes later in the story, when we're told that for good measure, Sebelius later informed us in an interview with CNN that the task force members were appointed by the Bush Administration, leaving the obvious conclusion that their findings must of course, be tainted by their appointment.