Controversy is swirling around the government's new recommendations for breast cancer screening.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force altered its guidelines, saying women should start getting regular mammograms at age 50, not 40.
And instead of getting one every year, officials upped that number to every two years.
The government says early screenings lead to more false positives, which give way to unnecessary biopsies.
Some say the changes are necessary but others disagree, saying any lives saved are worth the expense.
"It doesn't make sense to be putting our efforts into doing mammography screening in women under 50 when we can find better tools that will help more women and be more accurate," says Dr. Susan Love of the Susan Love Research Foundation.
"We have made significant gains in reducing deaths from breast cancer over the past 19 or 20 years, and those gains are based in no small part in our recommendation in getting screened every year," says Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society.
There's no word on whether the new guidelines will impact insurance reimbursement for mammograms.
The average cost for the procedure is around $125 dollars.
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