Women across the country are reacting to new recommendations in the fight against breast cancer. A new government panel said practices you learned as a teenager could do more harm than good.

Thirty-four-year-old Mary Ortiz had breast pain a few months ago, so she called her doctor at Baystate's Comprehensive Breast Cancer.

"I figured I'd go get a mammogram because I have a history of breast cancer in my family," Ortiz said.

A mammogram found a cyst that was leaking fluid inside her breast.

"If I hadn't come here, I'd never would have found my lump whose to know how worse it could have gotten. I could have had cancer," she said.

A new government funded task force is recommending that patients the same age as Ortiz forgo mammograms until the age of 50. The panel said routine mammograms for younger women are not effective and that when screening starts at 40, there are more false positives leading to unnecessary biopsies.

Doctors at Baystate Medical Center strongly disagree.

"I don't think it's appropriate for a national society to say that we don't recommend," Dr. Grace Makari-Judson said.

Makari-Judson said mammograms are the one thing helping to drive down the breast cancer death toll.

"Every year for the last 20 years we've seen a steady improvement with a 2-3 percent reduction in the risk of dying from breast cancer," Makari-Judson said.

The panel is also recommending mammograms should only be done every two years for women ages 50-74, rather than getting them annually. As for those self breast exams, the task force said forget about them.

As for Ortiz, she said she is ignoring the recommendations and doing what is right for her.

"I think it's better for a women to come in between the ages of 35 and 40, maybe even younger especially if they are at risk for breast cancer," Ortiz said.