Why Cancer Screening Doesn’t Save Lives
Illness is identified by taking a history, examining symptoms and signs, and often by taking some tests.
Many of us seem unwell as much testing is happening – roughly 50 million diagnostic tests, 500 million biochemistry and 130 million haematology tests are performed annually in the NHS. In the U.S., it’s another order of scale, with 14 billion laboratory tests ordered annually.
Testing is also on the increase: in primary care, it increased by 8.5% per year between 2000 and 2015 across all ages. The proportion having more than one test has also increased significantly. However, there are wide variations in testing, which is unlikely to be explained by clinical need.
The CDC reports that 70% of medical decisions depend on laboratory test results, but what happens when these decisions do not benefit patients or would never have caused any symptoms or problems?
Overdiagnosis transforms people into patients unnecessarily by identifying problems that were never going to cause harm or by medicalising ordinary life experiences through expanded definitions of diseases.
As an example, the most extensive study to date of the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test to screen for prostate cancer found it only had a negligible impact on reducing deaths. Still, it led to overdiagnosis and missed the early detection of some aggressive cancers.
The trial included 415,357 men between the ages of 50 and 69. They were randomly assigned to a single invitation for PSA screening or a control group without PSA screening. The participants were followed up for a median of 15 years.
So, while a single invitation for PSA screening reduced prostate cancer deaths by a tiny amount, roughly one in 1000 men tested, it had no impact on all-cause deaths, which is the outcome you are concerned about.
PSA screening did increase the detection of low-grade and localised disease but not intermediate, high-grade or distally advanced tumours. As a consequence, about one in six cancers were over-diagnosed.
These men went on to have invasive treatments they didn’t need, while the test failed to spot aggressive cancers requiring intervention – creating stress and worry for no reason.
You might expect all this extra testing to translate into better outcomes. Yet, medical practices with the highest PSA rates do not see reduced prostate cancer mortality. However, they do see increases in the number of downstream diagnostic and surgical procedures with potentially harmful consequences.
A slight reduction in prostate cancer deaths weighed against the lack of all-cause mortality and overdiagnosis that comes with all the worry and stress means the benefits of testing often do not outweigh the potential harms.
Over-detection and over-definition of diseases are major causes of over-diagnoses, which ultimately cause more harm than benefit. When it comes to testing, more is not always better.
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Wisenox
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The number one reason is money.
How they do it is where it becomes illegal. They knowingly make people sick, and influence the body to make it worse.
They don’t ever prescribe an absence of EMF or Aluminum, just medicine to address the problems from them.
Let’s say that calcium signaling leads to prostate cancer, or the symptoms of prostate cancer. Then, EMF is used, without people’s knowledge, to induce high numbers of elevated PSA results and other prostate symptoms. News articles and scripted media then dance for the nobility and talk incessantly about the number of cancers, but never the causes. Why not? Because it’s propaganda, an advertising campaign.
Then, the patient can be charged enormous amounts of money for medical treatments that will in turn create even bigger problems, when all they needed to do is remove the EMF.
They want people thinking ‘everyone gets it’, rather than ‘this isn’t supposed to be happening’.
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Tom
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14 billion lab tests each year in the US? That’s over 40 tests for each person in the country. I have had none in the last two years. They do all this testing and can not back it up with drugs that are worth a plug nickle. What a racket.
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Saeed Qureshi
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“The CDC reports that 70% of medical decisions depend on laboratory test results …”
Tests are developed and promoted by people not trained in this subject/science, i.e., medical professionals and their organizations (like CDC, FDA). Therefore, in general, the test can be assumed to be false and fraudulent. A recent example is PCR, simply fake and fraudulent used to convince that they’re a virus and people are sick because of it. From the scientific preservice, the test neither tests for viruses nor illnesses – it is a fact. The medical experts do not know or understand it because they do not have training or understanding of science/testing.
The tests’ development, validation, and application are part of science/chemistry, particularly analytical chemistry.
All clinical tests require validation to show the fitness for use before being put into general use, which is absent, hence misdiagnosis.
Lies Have Been Told! (https://bioanalyticx.com/lies-have-been-told/).
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ecm
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Another pathetic story of over-diagnosis by the questionable “palm-reading” Tyrer-Cuzick Risk Assessment Calculator.
Poor woman who was frightened and duped into the terrible treatments by her MD, but as happens too often, the victim rationalizes the brutality away.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/olivia-munn-disguises-battle-wounds-double-mastectomy-makes-me-a-little-sad
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