For years women around the globe have been told breast cancer screening is essential for early diagnosis and life-saving treatment. So what are we to make of a new study saying women under 50 with an average risk of breast cancer don't need mammograms, that screening can lead to needless procedures and false positives? Some doctors welcome this new information, others aren't convinced.

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Part Two of The Current

New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines - Dr. Martin Yaffe

We started this segment with a clip from actress, Elizabeth Hurley and she is right about one thing -- there's a lot of misinformation out there. Or at least confusing information. That public service announcement from the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign a few years ago contains advice that is very familiar to many women. Get a mammogram every year after 40. But now, we're getting a different message.

According to new guidelines issued by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, only women with an elevated risk of breast cancer should be screened before the age of 50. And that's not all ... the panel says that contrary to what we've been told, there's no benefit to breast self-examinations that in fact, they shouldn't even be done.

The new guidelines have sparked something of an an uproar. It's the latest chapter in what seems to be a growing debate about the benefits of cancer screening, and whether early screening saves lives or puts a disproportionate burden on an already strained healthcare system.

Dr. Martin Yaffe is a scientist in the imaging research program at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, and the co-director of the Imagery Research Program at the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research. He was in our Toronto studio.

New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines - Dr. Ruth Wilson

Those at the frontline in all of this are family doctors, such as Dr. Ruth Wilson. She is a practicing family doctor in Kingston and associate director of health policy at the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Dr. Ruth Wilson joined us from Ottawa.

Other segments from today's show:

• Robert Decker: Sole survivor of the 2009 Cougar helicopter crash
• The Day to End Impunity: Honduran Journalists & Canadian Relations