K, that's medical misadventure, or simply ignorant treatment, not a problem of PSA testing < I also have refused prostate screening ,predicting the findings that came out last year (I reached thhe conclusion 20 years ago that PSA screening would cause great morbidity without improving mortality) that there is a 1% increased survival rate with aggressive Rx that has destroyed millions of lives. >
Medical treatment is like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Doing anything at all to somebody has negative consequences along with the good. Lifting a car off somebody's leg carries the risk of dropping it back on their head. An anaesthetic to fix a seized up heart carries the risk of lack of oxygen to the brain due to having the hoses hooked up the wrong way around. But it's still nearly always worth lifting the car and fixing the heart because the alternative is definitely death.
In some situations, no treatment is better than treatment. Prostate cancer is a bit each way. But that does not mean that ignorance is a better answer. All a PSA test does is give knowledge and knowledge has never been harmful to me. Knowledge is nearly always valuable and often life-preserving. There is a cost to obtaining knowledge and some medical tests are not worth the cost. But a PSA test is a very low cost [including risk] test.
If I want to have a PSA test, it's not a doctor's business to tell me whether I want to know the information or not. But I would be interested in their assessment of the risks and costs of the test. As a result of such discussion I have had PSA tests but not a colonoscopy test, simple because of the relative costs and risks and value of the information. The peace of mind coming from a very low PSA result is great. Doctors put the knowledge the other way around and say the knowledge of high PSA is bad, because that knowledge, apart from being worrying, could induce people to treatment with more harm than good. To me, that's the patient's business, not the doctor's. The doctor could refuse treatment because they refuse to do the harm, but they should not refuse the knowledge.
Knowledge is a good thing, not a bad thing. Bad decisions based on that good knowledge is bad. Good decisions based on that good knowledge is good.
If doctors review their opinions of the last 40 years [and earlier] they might be a bit more humble than is the norm. I never did buy the theory that eggs were bad [due to cholesterol as it did not make chemical sense]. I scoffed eggs for decades, unworried. Did not eat margarine [which turned out to be bad, not good], ate butter and lecithin. I have low cholesterol, low blood pressure [not in a failing heart sense], low pulse rate. I learned in the oil industry how harmful oxidation, cracking, polymerization, polycyclic aromatics and toxins are - it was an easy step to realize that such sticky, reactive, gunk in engines and other machinery would NOT be any better in human machinery.
The oil industry used to put nitrites in cutting fluids, but stopped 30 years ago because nitrites inhaled as mist in a machine shop, are coughed, swallowed and form nitrosamines with amines and then stomach and other cancer. It seemed absurd that the oil industry stopped putting nitrites in cutting fluid, but people kept eating bacon, after frying the stuff to introduce a whole lot of other problems too. At least the frying avoids trichinosis and bacterial infection.
You have probably seen this medical professional on nutrition: youtube.com
Mqurice |
