WASHINGTON (AFP) – Doctors and experts are in uproar over new recommendations to raise the age of breast cancer screening, warning more women will die from the disease which already claims some 40,000 lives each year.

The high-level United States Preventative Services Task Force of scientists and researchers Monday recommended that breast cancer screening in women should now start at the age of 50 as opposed to 40.

And it further said that women between the ages of 50 to 74 should be screened every two years instead of annually.

"Screening saves lives, and cutting back on screening would cost lives," said Dr. Timothy Johnson, an oncologist at Holyoke Medical Center in Massachusetts.

"I'm against the proposals to cut back the screening on women between the age of 40 and 50, absolutely," he told AFP.

Some 210,000 American women are affected by the disease each year, and breast tumors are the most common cancer in women patients at Holyoke.

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