Two Cancers And The Addiction To Excess Treatment

Latest sally in the health care wars: mammograms. Now, normally I would have no business writing about breast cancer, but I can't pass this one up. A week ago, I wrote in The Big Money about the Times' astonishing front page contentions concerning finasteride and prostate cancer. Gina Kolata's Times article professed shock at the "tragedy" of Americans' unwillingness to go to their doctors and demand the latest highly hyped anti-cancer treatments.

Yeah, right. This week Times reports on the latest research on mammograms, which shows that starting screening at 40 rather than 50 will for most women fail to reduce breast cancer deaths and result mainly in unnecessary procedures. But (surprise!) Americans, used to the idea that more care is always better care, want to keep getting the tests. Is there anybody out there who actually believes that Americans are reluctant to get more treatment, or was last week's prostate cancer story just the kind of nonsense you get for a blockbuster example of sadly ignored health care advances to fit the thesis of your big doorstop of an investigative story?