On this Thanksgiving, like others, I am thankful for my wife, Linda Hirsh.

For 28 years of marriage, Linda has been the joy and delight of my life.

Linda was really on my mind last week after a federal panel issued guidelines recommending against mammograms for women ages 40 to 49 and only mammograms every other year for women 50 and older.

Forget breast self-exams, the panel said, because they do no good.

Look around and you will see some of the benefits of breast self-exams and mammograms for women 40 and older.

I am a benefactor of that good: I am not a widower.

My wife’s life was saved by breast detection guidelines — regular self-exams and mammograms in her 40s.

She was 44 years old when she detected a mass in her left breast during a self-exam in between yearly mammograms. The mass felt like the size of an unpopped kernel of popcorn.

Her doctor didn’t think it was much, but Linda thought otherwise. She waited three or four days after her menstrual cycle to get a mammogram.

The mammogram showed a small mass — about 1.5 centimeters, or two-thirds of an inch, in diameter — and cancer was suspected. A biopsy two days later confirmed the mammogram findings.

The mass was so small that we all thought Linda had detected it before cancer had spread to the lymph nodes. But surprisingly, the disease had already spread. A month before, she hadn’t felt anything, now she had a lump.

If she had put off seeing a doctor when she first felt a mass, the lump would have only gotten bigger, and the cancer would have spread even more.

If Linda had not practiced regular self-exams, she would have died. If she had not had regular annual mammograms in her 40s, she would have died.

Linda had a recurrence of breast cancer but has been healthy for several years.

In its new guidelines, the U.S Preventive Services Task Force didn’t conspire to ration health care as Republicans screamed. That’s paranoia.

The panel simply looked at science and made a bad judgment.

The task force based its recommendations on the fact that screening 1,300 women in their 50s to save one life was worth it, but that screening 1,900 women in their 40s to save a life is not worth it.

If the science showed screening women in their 40s saved no lives, then it’s a different story. But it has saved lives. I have interviewed dozens of women whose lives were saved in their 40s by early detection with a mammogram or self-exam.

Mammograms every other year at age 50 and older may not do the trick to detect breast cancers early enough. That’s the opinion of local breast cancer experts.

And why go against self-exams — even if many women can’t do them properly? One woman said she conducted exams improperly but felt a lump and early detection saved her life.

Why wouldn’t we want women paying more attention to breast health? The costs of false alarms are anxiety and more

follow-up health care. The costs of late detection are high treatment costs and death.

What’s a life worth?