US Preventive Services Task Force makes recommendation for radical change -- again

The Washington Post just released a story that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has concluded that mammograms are unwise for younger women. Post reporter Rob Stein describes the USPSTF as "an influential federal task force" and "the federal panel that sets government policy on prevention."
 
 We could only hope that his description was true. In fact, the USPSTF has been trying to steer the federal government away from "junk science" and towards "evidence-based" health interventions for years. This may be, as Stein sums up, a "radical change" in public health recommendations.

Perhaps now people will pay more attention to what the USPSTF concluded back in 2003 and maintains today: our present policy discouraging salt intake in the general population may be politically-correct, but it is a scientifically-flawed policy. The USPSTF has studied the question and found insufficient evidence to make a general recommendation for the public.

We'd all be better off if the US Prevention Services Task force was, indeed, the influential panel that sets government policy on prevention that the Post postulates.