MADISON, Wis. -- New guidelines from a federal task force recommend that women in their 40s don't get regular mammograms, but someon in the health care industry don't agre with the new directive.

"Only in 1990 did the deaths start dropping, and we believe the death rate started dropping because of mammography," said Dr. Gale Sisney, chief breast cancer radiologist for the Carbone Cancer Center. "This announcement was really disappointing."

Sisney questions the methods used to develop the new guidelines.

"I don't see any new data that brings us to new conclusions. This is simply reworking old data with assumptions [that] I think are kind of flawed," said Sisney. "I would question: Is this about saving women's lives, or is this about cost? And is cost political or not in the year 2009?"

Lisa Schemmel, of the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation, said that she shares Sisney's frustration.

"To tell people that they have to wait until age 50 [to get a mammogram] because there's too many false positives and anxiety caused by it, and they say the anxiety is worse than waiting until age 50; it just doesn't make sense," said Schemmel.

The American College of Radiology also released a statement in disagreement with the new guidelines: "The recommendations make unconscionable decisions about the value of human life ... The taskforce make its recommendations without allowing for public input or involving anyone with expertise in breast cancer detection and diagnosis."

Sisney said that she would understand the recommendation if there was a new tool to screen for breast cancer, but since there isn't, she believes the guidelines are taking away from the only one available.

"We know that if women do not have screening, mammography -- especially beginning at age 40," said Sisney. "There will be more cancer deaths from breast cancer."

A similar situation happened in the early 1990s when the National Cancer Institute stepped away from recommending screening for younger women. The institute later said it was wrong and bad studies produced the data its recommendation was based on.

Officials said that it's still too early to tell if the new government recommendations could be used to limit what insurance companies are required to cover.