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The importance of regular mammograms to ending breast cancer has been widely endorsed by everyone from a government-backed panel to patient advocacy groups and Angelina Jolie. Is it possible they've all been wrong? A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine published Monday looked at data from 16 million women in 547 U.S. counties in 2000. More than 53,000 were diagnosed with breast cancer that year. As expected, the researchers found that the number of breast cancer diagnoses rose with more aggressive screenings. The surprise: the number of deaths remained the same. (Cha, 7/6)

Science and politics are making uneasy bedfellows as officials at the Food and Drug Administration weigh a proposed drug to enhance female sexual desire, a trio of experts on drug safety warned Monday. The FDA is expected to decide next month whether it will allow Sprout Pharmaceuticals to market the drug flibanserin as a treatment for low sexual desire in premenopausal women. The agency has rejected flibanserin twice before. But its latest round of deliberations follow last month's 18-6 vote in favor of approval by an FDA advisory panel .... In an editorial published online Monday in JAMA, three members of the advisory panel warned that the agency's decision is being made in a "politically charged atmosphere." (Healy, 7/6)