In the news

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35834880/ns/health-health_care/

http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_med_unnecessary_tests.html

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/WorldNews/doctors-recommending-tests/story?id=10078164

http://topnews.us/content/213115-obama-being-over-treated-reports

(multiple links because these main stream media websites keep changing the address of their articles)

Oh my goodness, there's A LOT to talk about in this article.

wow

I'll have to come back to it later, but check it out:

Experts dispute how much routine cancer screening saves lives. It also sometimes detects cancers that are too slow-growing to cause harm, or has false-positive results leading to invasive but needless procedures — and some risks. Treatment for prostate cancer that may be too slow-growing to be life-threatening can mean incontinence and impotence. Angiograms carry a slight risk for stroke or heart attack.


There is it again, mentioned in passing but at least it's mentioned. The HARMS from tests. Not just false positives but the harms from an unnecessary diagnosis and the harms from complications of testing. The "slight risk" for a stroke or heart attack by the way is larger than the benefit from screening mammography (1 in 2000 40 yo women over 10 years will have her life saved by screening mammography and around 1 in 100 people who undergo a heart cath have a stroke or heart attack)

The news frames this like it's a debate of opinions among experts but the reason the keeps coming up is because we have learned through experience and studying the data, that we are harming more people than we're saving!

And the news also leaves out the all important fact that the individual patients making these decisions are in charge of what lives and what dies in medicine.

Tyranny always requires the consent of the victim.

Withdraw your consent my friends and you end this madness.