You are correct. The problem is that the insurance industry won’t cover screening under age 50. My late wife was diagnosed with Stage IV, it was all through her liver, one month before her 50th birthday. She fought it for three and a half years.
The radiologist who read the liver CT reported either ovarian or colo-rectal cancer (tumor morphologies are similar). The doctors ordered a colonoscopy to see if the origin was there. It was. The insurance company initially denied payment because she wasn’t old enough to get screened.
Many doctors and all insurance companies will fight tooth and nail against screening before age 50. The doctors think that on average the risks outweigh the benefits. On average - of course if you are one of the unlucky folks who aren’t the average, you just get to die.
For the insurance companies it’s simple actuarial math. Screen ten thousand to catch one cancer case. It’s cheaper to pay a million dollars in futile radiation, chemo and surgery. If the scales tip, colonoscopies will be mandatory from eighth grade on.
Do you understand when I say “we are chasing it”? We chased it from the “within 6 inches” etc. and now we are chasing it down ages. IOW, we remove “found cancers” from the total sum of all colon cancers so the proportion of deaths are in new places, younger people. The recommendation to start screening especially closely those of us with a family history is the sensible thing.