18 January
I do sometimes get sick and tired of being right. It's all very well being able to come over all smug when the subject comes up for discussion, but since not being right would be good news for the planet and/or its inhabitants, I'd really rather be wrong a lot of the time.
Alas, with prostate cancer & the heavily advertised prostate screening program, I am being proven right with an article I posted almost five years ago.
The subject has hit the news again right now, with the PSA test designer himself pointing out to the NZ health authorities that mass screening for prostate cancer is a bad idea.
Read this article, posted on Fairfax/Stuff today.
Note how the ministry and - inevitably - the Prostate Cancer Foundation defend screening.
Well, I wouldn't know that simply labelling opposing views "pathetic" is defence, but that was PCF's answer. This is supposed to be an organisation dedicated to men's health, and instead of pointing to evidence to back their status, they say nothing. Just remember, these are the guys who are there for you, men!
The defence put forward by some urologist is a case of a bloke who is completely out of touch with reality. He states:
Criticism of PSA testing was often based on flawed US research, while European research showed screening was beneficial.
Well, that sounds fair enough, because the bloke's a urologist after all, and they spend all day feeling up blokes' prostates, so he'd know, right?
Except he is 100% wrong.
The European Cancer Congress 2013 stated very clearly that "screening does more harm than good". Yes, the European Cancer Congress. How could a urologist be unaware of that? (Why Stuff didn't get that far is no surprise, however.)
I can go even further, with the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer concluding that mass screening is not recommended, despite it reducing the mortality by one third. (nicely confirming what I said 5 years ago!)
Maybe people don't understand the maths, because, by gosh, reducing your chances of dying by one whole third sounds fantastically good! Unfortunately, it only reduces your chances of dying from prostate cancer by one third, and very, very few men die from prostate cancer. Don't believe me? Check the facts. As noted by this MoH publication, the death rate from prostate cancer is ~30 per 100,000, causing 560 deaths each year. Those are bloody small numbers, and it must be taken into account that the vast majority of fatal cancers occur in the very old. Improving your death rate by 1/3 actually means that you are actually reducing your chances of death by 1 in 10,000, so if you can think up 9,999 other ways to die, the prostate cancer survivor will be the last one standing. Again, repeating what I said in 2009, the odds are plain crazy: you have a 50% chance of having horrific side-effects, and a 0.0001% chance of saving your life.
Five years ago, I said that I didn't think the ivory tower of the PCF was being built on wilful promotion of myths, but now, I am not so sure. The PCF's "pathetic" statement makes it clear to me that they have no real regard for men's health or facts, but are solely intent on keeping their annual funding of five million bucks to keep themselves in work.
That five million in direct money being thrown away will be added to by at least 100% through the medical industry wasting enormous amounts of time chasing cancers that either don't exist, or are benign enough to ignore, for a total cost to the country of $10,000,000 - and that's without factoring in sick leave that need not have been used.
Ten million a year would fund an awful lot of genuinely needy operations. Instead, we're throwing at a scheme that has been completely proven to be false.
Welcome to New Zealand.
Copyright © Alan Charman