Daily Mail
United Kingdom
Last updated at 3:10 AM on 3rd August 2011
Hundreds of young women given smear tests on the advice of GPs are having their test samples rejected by bureaucratic clinics – because they are under 25.
Patients and GPs are becoming increasingly frustrated at the zero tolerance approach by laboratories, which saw 712 women across England have tests ignored last year because of Government rules which say those under 25 do not need to be tested.
This was up from 244 rejections the previous year.
GPs and patients groups are increasingly calling for a return to pre-2003 rules when the minimum age for a test was 20.
Around 3,000 women in the UK each year contract cervical cancer and it accounts for more than 900 deaths.
Dr Clare Gerada, of the Royal College of GPs, told BBC Newsnight: ‘I think if a GP has made a clinical decision to give a cervical smear then that smear should be processed.
‘The decision not to process it should not be made by a lab with no details about why that smear has been done.’
The Government insist that if a woman under 25 needs a smear test they must be referred to a gynaecologist.
But one consultant told Newsnight, which compiled the data using the Freedom of Information Act, that decision was crazy.
Professor John Shepherd said: ‘I think that’s not sensible, It’s crazy. GPs are well trained doctors.
‘In most practices there will be partners who specialise in gynaecology. To send patients straight to a gynaecologist is actually a waste of man power, time and money, and not sensible.’
The age for cervical screening was raised to 25 because experts believed it caused more harm than good in younger women.
Under 25s are more likely to present falsely positive results, meaning unnecessary treatment.
No woman should be denied a pap test – ever. This is especially crucial in light of the HPV vaccines and the number of reported abnormal pap smears, cervical lesions and cervical cancer reported to VAERS post-vaccination. How would a 11 or 12 year old vaccinated girl know if the vaccine prevented her from getting cervical cancer? She would have to wait 13 years……FDA Closing Documents state that if a girl has been previously exposed to HPV and get the vaccine her chances of getting cervical cancer increase 42.6% with Gardasil and 32.5% with Cervarix.
This almost forces adolescents into getting the HPV vaccine….if they have to wait until they are 25 – what is to protect them up until that time….sounds like Pharma and the medical industry may be in bed on this one. The American College of Gynecologists -ACOG – just raised the pap smear guidelines in the U.S. to 25.
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