SPOKANE -- Breast Cancer survivors are having a hard time accepting advice from a government task force that suggested women should cut back on how many mammograms they get.

The panel of doctors and scientists concluded that getting mammograms every year from age 40 on results in too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without improving a woman's chance of survival.

The sisterhood of local breast cancer survivors, who gather at Shear Attitude Salon, reject that advice and say the biopsies and yearly screenings are worth it.

"I feel like if this goes into place we are absolutely going back to the stone ages, I'm sorry," Deb Cridlebaugh-Broyles said.

Each one of the women at Shear Attitude Salon is astounded by the findings of the government panel.

The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommends women in their 40's should not get mammograms unless they have a family history of a heightened risk and women ages 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every other year, not every year.

And even though the controversial study also concludes that breast self exams are of no value, Spokane breast cancer surgeon Carol Guthrie says it does not downplay the magnitude of cancer.

"I don't think it's been totally vetted yet, but I think it certainly is caused to rethink to some degree," Guthrie said.

The panel weighed the number of lives saved because of mammograms; for every 1,904 women age 40 to 49 that are screen over ten years one life is saved. That's compared to one life in every 1,339 women screened between the ages of 50 to 74 and one life for ever 377 women ages 60-69.

Guthrie says the study has made her reconsider what she will recommend to patients in the future.

"They overlay the risks and the benefits and draw a line somewhere and say this is where it makes sense," Guthrie said.

The local breast cancer survivors at Shear Attitude Salon belong to a club that no one wants to belong to. Each one says she might not be here if it weren't for their yearly mammogram or self exam. They hope others are encouraged to take the same steps they did to detect and cure cancer.

"We can not go backwards, we need to continue to go forward," Cridlebaugh-Broyles said.

Advocacy groups such as the National Breast Cancer Coalition and Breast Cancer Action welcome the new guidelines.

The American Cancer Society, however, still encourages women over 40 to get mammograms.

The new task force recommendation could potentially influence whether insurance will pay for the procedure.