Finally, perhaps, women are getting the news that breast-cancer screening carries risks as well as benefits and that the decision to undergo screening requires a more nuanced approach than the current one-size-fits-all recommendation that all women, starting at age 40, should have an annual mammogram.

An article in Tuesday's New York Times goes a long way to explaining why that recommendation oversimplifies the matter  — and to introducing women, who may not have realized it until now, to the fact that cancers experts do not agree on what the evidence actually says (or doesn't say) about the risks and benefits of mammography screening. Indeed, many experts believe the benefits have been exaggerated.

Reading the article won't make your decision about screening easier, but it will make that decision more informed.

Writes reporter Denise Grady:

The general themes from the differing — and often impassioned — views of the experts interviewed by Grady might be summarized as follows (but, please, read the entire Times article to come to your own conclusion):

• There remains much debate about whether all women aged 40 to 50 (not just those at high risk of developing breast cancer) benefit from regular screening. The evidence supporting annual screening for this age group is, at best, very weak.

• There’s more of a consensus (but one that is by no means universal) that women between the ages of 50 and 70 may benefit from screening. But are yearly mammograms necessary? As Grady’s article points out, European women in this age group tend to be screened only every other year, and their breast-cancer death rates are the same as in the United States.

• The evidence that suggests women over 70 benefit from screening is, again, weak, at best.

Grady concludes her article by sharing how her reporting on this issue has informed her personal decision regarding mammograms: