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>Getting a cancer diagnosis is a "huge deal" because getting cancer is one of the worst experiences a human can go through. I’ve never been given a cancer diag

by tnel77 5y ago

>Getting a cancer diagnosis is a "huge deal" because getting cancer is one of the worst experiences a human can go through. I’ve never been given a cancer diagnosis, but I’d imagine it’s much, much worse to be told you have stage 4 cancer versus stage 1. As the other person stated, the culture would adapt and people would learn to not immediately sell their house and go on a Vegas bender just because a yearly preventative test said they might, possibly, perhaps have stage 1 cancer. If you are one of the people with a false positive, you schedule a follow-up and move on accordingly. Your position is anti-progress just for the sake of being against accidentally scaring a few people. Indeed, we should let more people develop cancer and discover it at a later stage due to a small amount of false positives. Not scaring a small amount of people is more important than revolutionizing cancer screenings.

rackjack 5y ago
> I’ve never been given a cancer diagnosis, but I’d imagine it’s much, much worse to be told you have stage 4 cancer versus stage 1. It's bad all the way. > If you are one of the people with a false positive, you schedule a follow-up and move on accordingly. People already do schedule follow-ups and additional tests and second opinions when they get a positive. > Your position is anti-progress just for the sake of being against accidentally scaring a few people. No, it is cautiously ethical because: 1. You probably shouldn't tell sub-1.5 million people who don't have cancer that they have cancer 2. There are more false positives than you think, if you are suggesting regular blood tests
- ericd 5y ago
  My impression is that yours is the consensus view in the medical community. But I think that what all these people are telling you is that they'd much rather have a much higher chance of a false positive stage 1 diagnosis than even a much lower chance of false negative diagnosis until they're at stage 4. And any positive result from this would obviously be couched in a doctor consult saying "if you have cancer, which this test doesn't definitively show, it's still very early, we're just going to keep an eye on it, we didn't get any confirmation from a chest x-ray or CT", etc And having a memento mori can be a positive thing.
- deleted 5y ago
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by tnel77 5y ago

rackjack 5y ago

> I’ve never been given a cancer diagnosis, but I’d imagine it’s much, much worse to be told you have stage 4 cancer versus stage 1. It's bad all the way. > If you are one of the people with a false positive, you schedule a follow-up and move on accordingly. People already do schedule follow-ups and additional tests and second opinions when they get a positive. > Your position is anti-progress just for the sake of being against accidentally scaring a few people. No, it is cautiously ethical because: 1. You probably shouldn't tell sub-1.5 million people who don't have cancer that they have cancer 2. There are more false positives than you think, if you are suggesting regular blood tests

ericd 5y ago
My impression is that yours is the consensus view in the medical community. But I think that what all these people are telling you is that they'd much rather have a much higher chance of a false positive stage 1 diagnosis than even a much lower chance of false negative diagnosis until they're at stage 4. And any positive result from this would obviously be couched in a doctor consult saying "if you have cancer, which this test doesn't definitively show, it's still very early, we're just going to keep an eye on it, we didn't get any confirmation from a chest x-ray or CT", etc And having a memento mori can be a positive thing.
deleted 5y ago
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