BBC News reports that prostate cancer screening does not save lives and indeed does more harm than good. This is the conclusion of a 20 year study published in the British Medical Journal.
I regard this as excellent news since hopefully it will save many men from going for screening and suffering the needless harm and worry that this screening entails.
I am similarly against mammography being used to screen women for evidence of breast cancer. I have always considered routine mammography screening as an expensive political pretence of concern for women's health that actually does far more harm than good to the women screened.
Screening is not prevention, though it seems to be promoted as prevention. Prevention should be the primary aim where cancer is concerned, though the Cancer Research Industry accords little value to, and puts little effort into, cancer prevention.
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We spend far too much on these pointless testing protocols, Willow. How any scientist (so called) can actually state that screening in itself is indicative of a life saving end point boggles the mind. Only if there is an intervention after screening could one extrapolate that anyone's life is extended and the jury is still out on that, but is unlikely to favour intervention.
ReplyDeleteThe simple truth is that PSA tests and Mamography have caused more problems than they have ever resolved. As you say we would be more productive in promoting prevention, and far too many 'charities' rely on the niavete of the public to justify their pointless and drug promoting origins.
The cancer industry continues to promote the use of penetrating radiation as 'cure' when the nuclear industry continues to invent ever more protocols to prevent exposure to penetrating radiation to 'prevent' cancer. Go figure!