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Most people lives happily for decades with many cancers. The difficult question is finding those cancers that are likely to actually cause harm. Mammograms ar

Most people lives happily for decades with many cancers. The difficult question is finding those cancers that are likely to actually cause harm. Mammograms are not very useful here, and may be a net negative for health outcomes because... The "Feel-Good War" is causing a lot of harm: tens of thousands of women tortured by medically unnecessarily poisoning and radiation, inflicted by well-meaning but ignorant doctors.

hashmymustache 13y ago
It's not just because doctors are ignorant. It's largely in part to a health issue that has become an overwhelmingly political issue that ignorantly preserves the status quo of "more screening = better." For doctors not to abide by such screening procedures then if their patient gets breast cancer and were encouraged not to screen given the low yield and high risk they can be sued for negligence.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  Feigning ignorance due to intimidation is not better than simple ignorance. Doctor are morally responsible for doing no harm. I do recognize such is not always easy, for reasons you have mentioned. My 40something wife would love it if our HMO would stop calling and emailing her 6 times a year to get a mammogram. She has explained clearly to her gynecologist her reasoning, that she is absolutely not going to get a mammogram before age 50, but the annoying calls do not stop. (We shut off our ringer, and use a Google voice number for people we want to her from.) Much as I sympathize, breast cancer survivor groups have many characteristics of a religious cult. They have paid a high emotional and physical price for entry, and as a result they are so bought in to the idea that the treatment-torture saved their lives that they have only a limited ability to think rationally about health issues anymore.
  - sk5t 13y ago
    Perhaps you could change the phone number registered with the HMO to a Google voice number, and then block the source of harrassing calls. Or at least let them leave voicemail, which you can cheerfully delete based on text transaction without ever listening.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  > It's not just because doctors are ignorant. So, doctors are ignorant? That's news to me, I know a few doctors and they don't strike me as ignorant at all.
  - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
    Your superficial impressions are very persuasive. Many of the best con artists are sincere. So if they do not recognize their own ignorance, why should you? If there was an important gap in their knowledge they were aware of, would they be confessing that to you, a non-doctor? As for my evidence, our HMO is run by doctors. My wife's clearly reasoned decision to not get a mammogram before 50, based on her own reading of the medical literature, has proven unpersuasive to her gynecologist or the people who set the policies that "provide" the harassing phone calls.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Many of the best con artists are sincere. No. Many of the best con artists can convincingly simulate sincerity. If they were sincere, by definition, they wouldn't be con artists. A con is by definition a transaction in which one person knows something that the other person doesn't, something that's being deliberately hidden from view for the benefit of the con artist.
      - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
        One can never be too literal.
      - gehar 13y ago
        What do you call someone (like, say Jenny McCarthy), who honestly deludes herself into a position where their lies are both harmful and profitable? Does it matter what they really think? We are who we pretend to be.
        lutusp 13y ago
        > What do you call someone (like, say Jenny McCarthy), who honestly deludes herself into a position where their lies are both harmful and profitable? For Jenny McCarthy to continue to believe what she claims to believe, she has to be either brain-damaged or lying. Oh -- or both. > Does it matter what they really think? Of course it does. An intelligent, mistaken person can be reasoned with, educated, presented with new evidence. An intelligent con man cannot. > We are who we pretend to be. Unrealistically cynical. The best way to derive mutual benefit from other people is to be exactly who you say you are.
- makomk 13y ago
  No kidding it's politicised. I was following some of the really big feminist group blogs back in 2009 when the US Preventative Services Task Force announced their new guidelines, and they were pretty damn unhappy. Apparently it's "patronizing" to care about the anxiety and unnecessary procedures caused by false positives: http://feministing.com/2009/11/17/what-we-missed-161/ http://feministing.com/2009/11/17/what-we-missed-161/
diogenescynic 13y ago
Don't forget how much money is involved. Hospitals need to pay for that expensive equipment somehow. This is a stable source of income.

hashmymustache 13y ago

It's not just because doctors are ignorant. It's largely in part to a health issue that has become an overwhelmingly political issue that ignorantly preserves the status quo of "more screening = better." For doctors not to abide by such screening procedures then if their patient gets breast cancer and were encouraged not to screen given the low yield and high risk they can be sued for negligence.

comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
Feigning ignorance due to intimidation is not better than simple ignorance. Doctor are morally responsible for doing no harm. I do recognize such is not always easy, for reasons you have mentioned. My 40something wife would love it if our HMO would stop calling and emailing her 6 times a year to get a mammogram. She has explained clearly to her gynecologist her reasoning, that she is absolutely not going to get a mammogram before age 50, but the annoying calls do not stop. (We shut off our ringer, and use a Google voice number for people we want to her from.) Much as I sympathize, breast cancer survivor groups have many characteristics of a religious cult. They have paid a high emotional and physical price for entry, and as a result they are so bought in to the idea that the treatment-torture saved their lives that they have only a limited ability to think rationally about health issues anymore.
- sk5t 13y ago
  Perhaps you could change the phone number registered with the HMO to a Google voice number, and then block the source of harrassing calls. Or at least let them leave voicemail, which you can cheerfully delete based on text transaction without ever listening.
jacquesm 13y ago
> It's not just because doctors are ignorant. So, doctors are ignorant? That's news to me, I know a few doctors and they don't strike me as ignorant at all.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  Your superficial impressions are very persuasive. Many of the best con artists are sincere. So if they do not recognize their own ignorance, why should you? If there was an important gap in their knowledge they were aware of, would they be confessing that to you, a non-doctor? As for my evidence, our HMO is run by doctors. My wife's clearly reasoned decision to not get a mammogram before 50, based on her own reading of the medical literature, has proven unpersuasive to her gynecologist or the people who set the policies that "provide" the harassing phone calls.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Many of the best con artists are sincere. No. Many of the best con artists can convincingly simulate sincerity. If they were sincere, by definition, they wouldn't be con artists. A con is by definition a transaction in which one person knows something that the other person doesn't, something that's being deliberately hidden from view for the benefit of the con artist.
    - comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
      One can never be too literal.
    - gehar 13y ago
      What do you call someone (like, say Jenny McCarthy), who honestly deludes herself into a position where their lies are both harmful and profitable? Does it matter what they really think? We are who we pretend to be.
      - lutusp 13y ago
        > What do you call someone (like, say Jenny McCarthy), who honestly deludes herself into a position where their lies are both harmful and profitable? For Jenny McCarthy to continue to believe what she claims to believe, she has to be either brain-damaged or lying. Oh -- or both. > Does it matter what they really think? Of course it does. An intelligent, mistaken person can be reasoned with, educated, presented with new evidence. An intelligent con man cannot. > We are who we pretend to be. Unrealistically cynical. The best way to derive mutual benefit from other people is to be exactly who you say you are.
makomk 13y ago
No kidding it's politicised. I was following some of the really big feminist group blogs back in 2009 when the US Preventative Services Task Force announced their new guidelines, and they were pretty damn unhappy. Apparently it's "patronizing" to care about the anxiety and unnecessary procedures caused by false positives: http://feministing.com/2009/11/17/what-we-missed-161/ http://feministing.com/2009/11/17/what-we-missed-161/

diogenescynic 13y ago

Don't forget how much money is involved. Hospitals need to pay for that expensive equipment somehow. This is a stable source of income.