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Jewish women should get mammograms at 40, experts say. Here’s why.
When Yaffa Leah Field was in her late 20s, she decided to undergo genetic testing.
Her grandmother had had breast cancer, and Field wanted to know whether she was among the one of every 40 Jewish women of Ashkenazi descent with either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutations, which make them extra susceptible to breast cancer.
If she did have one of those mutations, her chances of developing breast cancer by age 70 would be roughly 50% in her lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“The test came back negative,” said Field, now 43 and the mother of three boys.
Though temporarily relieved, she knew that breast cancer risk is not limited to those with the genetic mutations. Roughly one in eight women will develop the disease in their lifetime, and men, too, can have breast cancer.
Close monitoring, therefore, is essential. For women, that means not only regularly checking their breasts themselves for lumps or abnormalities, but getting mammograms. The question is when to start.
Field, who now works at Sharsheret, the national Jewish nonprofit that offers education, counseling and support to women facing breast and ovarian cancer, got her professional start as a physician’s assistant, so she knew how important it was to “do my screening on time.”
But what exactly “on time” means has been the subject of much debate and disagreement.
The question came to the fore again this spring when a panel of experts serving on the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) revised earlier guidelines and changed the recommended age that women get their first mammograms to 40, from 50, and suggested that they continue to have mammograms done once every two years. It’s not the first time the recommendation has changed.
“In 2016 the US Task Force changed the guidelines from 40 to 50,” said Dr. Caryn Gamss, a radiologist at Murray Hill Radiology in Manhattan.
Gamss is also a member of Sharsheret’s Medical Advisory Board. In her practice, Gamss adheres to guidelines from the American College of Radiology that recommend starting yearly screenings at age 40 provided a person has no risk factors.
“Fifty is too late,” Gamss says.
Even waiting until age 40 can be risky, as recent studies have shown high breast cancer mortality rates for women in that age group, she noted.
“People need to think about it younger instead of waiting and then finding out ‘My mother had cancer, my grandmother…’ — and they show up at 40 and have cancer, too,” Gamss said.
Her recommendation is that all women undergo a breast cancer risk assessment by age 25. That entails answering a panel of questions that covers one’s family and medical history. Among other things, the assessment inquires whether a person had “a biopsy and a high risk lesion; breast density, if someone has lymphoma and was treated under the age of 25; if someone got upper abdominal radiation before age 25.”
The responses to these questions help doctors determine when and how individual patients should be screened — including whether to do MRIs and ultrasounds to supplement mammograms, for example. At-risk women should start their 30s armed with information and a plan.
Short of that, there is what Peggy Cottrell, Sharsheret’s genetics program manager, calls a general rule of thumb: “If breast cancer has been diagnosed at a particular age, you want to start screening 10 years before that. So if someone’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 45, that person is going to start screening at 35.”
Avoiding smoking and alcohol, exercising, and a good diet are important to maintaining good health, Cottrell notes, but perhaps the biggest factor is chance. In fact, hereditary cancers like those caused by BRCA mutations account for only 15% of all breast cancers; most occur for reasons unknown. That makes screening all the more essential.
“For many women, knowing there is something they can do that can reduce their risk motivates them,” she said.
Many women delay getting mammograms out of fear of the results, nervousness about the process or just general anxiety. This is another area where Sharsheret provides women with help and guidance – even in the waiting room.
In order for doctors to interpret mammograms properly, they require two specific views of each breast. Sometimes, technicians need to take more than four photos to ensure they get those views; it doesn’t mean anything is wrong.
Women with no risk factors should get their first mammogram at age 40, experts now say, and to determine their level of risk, all women should undergo a breast cancer risk assessment by age 25. (Carol Yepes/Getty Images)
Even if you’re asked to come for a follow-up mammogram – what’s known as a diagnostic mammogram – it just means that more imaging is required, not that there’s necessarily a problem. Sometimes doctors observe a change in appearance from the prior year or a fold in the skin; other times the original image failed to capture the necessary view. Likewise, for some younger women and those with dense breasts, a mammogram may not suffice; doctors may require an ultrasound or MRI to examine the breast adequately.
Adina Fleischmann, a social worker who serves as Sharsheret’s chief services officer, recommends that each individual discuss their own circumstances with their healthcare provider. Sharsheret tries to promote awareness of the importance of getting breast cancer risk assessments, and to provide guidance to women about what to ask.
“We want to make sure that each woman who reaches out is able to ask the right questions: How often should I be screened? What’s the most appropriate screening method for me? Questions about what breast density means and how it can impact them,” Fleischmann said. “Those are the tools we want to give to our women.”
Women seeking guidance are encouraged to call Sharsheret toll-free at 866 474-2774 to connect with therapists and genetic counselors.
Sharsheret also offers peer-to-peer support, programs to guide cancer patients on how to talk about their illness with their children, and support to people who have a family member with breast cancer, including financial assistance for non-medical services critical to women’s quality of life and body image, such as acquiring wigs. Sharsheret also hosts live events such as barbecues, online yoga classes, family fun runs and other programs to empower women with cancer and foster a sense of community.
The education and awareness programming Sharsheret runs start as early as high school and college campuses, such as an annual Pink Day that includes grassroots fundraising events at hundreds of campuses worldwide.
“Sharsheret is here to arm you with education and to let you know that you’re not alone,” Fleischmann said. “Cancer screening, and the knowledge that comes along with it, can be empowering. By speaking with your healthcare provider about the screening guidelines that are most appropriate for you, you are taking a step toward your best health.”
As for Field, she went for her first baseline mammogram at age 40 — in the spring of 2020, just as Covid hit and the world masked up and locked down. The doctors identified something suspicious.
“It started a roller coaster of diagnostic testing. I wound up with eight biopsies, and in the end I had a bilateral mastectomy,” Field said after cancer was identified. “I feel thankful it was found very early.”
Her advice: Know your body and your family history.
“Breast cancer doesn’t just affect women 40 and older,” Field said. “Know your potential risks. Empower yourself to know what you need to be aware of. It shouldn’t be a shock. Be appropriately proactive.”
“And most importantly, when you reach the age when it’s recommended, get screened,” Field said. “It may be uncomfortable for a few minutes, but it’ll give you peace of mind.”
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The post Jewish women should get mammograms at 40, experts say. Here’s why. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.