Health Screening can do More Harm than Good and Patients deserve the Truth

In breast cancer screening, false positives cause enormous stress and expose patients to the risks of radiotherapy and surgery… 

Screening always sounds good – catch disease early, while it can still be treated – but the reality includes overdiagnosis – picking up “diseases” that were never going to cause any problem –  and screening has side effects.

The problem is that doctors and researchers have known about these downsides of screening for decades, but the message hasn’t got through to patients.

Because screening is a mixed bag of benefit and harm no one should impose their own values onto another person…

• Read Patients deserve the truth: health screening can do more harm than good, by Margaret McCartney, The Guardian, 3 Jan 2014.
• More posts about Breast Cancer – Mammograms – Screening.
• Watch this video playlist: overdiagnosis and overtreatment.