Boogie Woogie

Jeanette Smith describes the painting Boogie Woogie by Paul Chidlaw (1900-1989), a native of Ohio, in Art of JAMA. 

Chidlaw attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1919 to 1923 and in 1927 moved to Paris, which at that time was the epicenter of experimentation in modern art.

He returned to the United States in 1935, and initially painted murals for the Works Progress Administration.  

In Boogie Woogie, a cheerful inundation of colors reminds the exuberance of the genre that became popular in the late 1920 and visually suggests a torrent of bright streamers and confetti drifting down from the winter sky at New Year’s celebrations. Although each and every color is stimulating in itself, the work in aggregate is even more motivating because of the effect of the contrasting hues and shapes.

Although Chidlaw’s eyesight was diminishing in his late years, he retained his creativity and spirit of artistic adventure and created paintings with colors combining as in a joyful symphony.

U.S is Spending $4 billion Annually Resulting from False Positive Mammograms and Unnecessary Treatments

According to a paper published in Health Affairs by Ong and Mendel the U.S. spends $4 billion a year on unnecessary medical costs due to mammograms that generate false alarms, and on treatment of certain breast tumors unlikely to cause problems.

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They found that costs due to false-positive mammograms and breast cancer over diagnoses among women ages 40–59, based on expenditure data from a major US health care insurance plan for 702,154 women in the years 2011–13.

The average expenditures for each false-positive mammogram, invasive breast cancer, and ductal carcinoma in situ in the twelve months following diagnosis were $852, $51,837 and $12,369, respectively. This translates to a national cost of $4 billion each year.

The cumulative cost is as follows: $2.8 billion resulting from false-positive mammograms and another $1.2 billion attributed to treatment of tumors that grow slowly or not at all, and are unlikely to develop into life-threatening disease during a woman’s lifetime.

Screening has the potential to save lives. However, the economic impact of false-positive mammography results and breast cancer over diagnoses must be considered in the debate about the appropriate populations for screening.