U.S. Health Panel to Men: No More PSA Tests For You!

[boedicca]

Here we go! ObamaCare will control costs by denying PSA tests to Healthy Men. Of course, once they develop prostate cancer and are no longer healthy, it will be too late to save them.


Healthy men should no longer receive a P.S.A. blood test to screen for prostate cancer because the test does not save lives over all and often leads to more tests and treatments that needlessly cause pain, impotence and incontinence in many, a key government health panel has decided.

The draft recommendation, by the United States Preventive Services Task Force and due for official release next week, is based on the results of five well-controlled clinical trials and could substantially change the care given to men 50 and older. There are 44 million such men in the United States, and 33 million of them have already had a P.S.A. test — sometimes without their knowledge — during routine physicals.

The task force’s recommendations are followed by most medical groups. Two years ago the task force recommended that women in their 40s should no longer get routine mammograms, setting off a firestorm of controversy. The recommendation to avoid the P.S.A. test is even more forceful and applies to healthy men of all ages.

“Unfortunately, the evidence now shows that this test does not save men’s lives,” said Dr. Virginia Moyer, a professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and chairwoman of the task force. “This test cannot tell the difference between cancers that will and will not affect a man during his natural lifetime. We need to find one that does.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/health/07prostate.html?_r=2&ref=health


My dad caught the early stages of prostate cancer via a PSA test ten years ago. Thank goodness the test was available. How many dads will needlessly die if this policy becomes official?

 

[Mad Scientist]

Sounds familiar. Oh yeah, here it is:

"Panel Recommends Mammograms at 50 Not 40":
In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40 - NYTimes.com

Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.
While many women do not think a screening test can be harmful, medical experts say the risks are real. A test can trigger unnecessary further tests, like biopsies, that can create extreme anxiety. And mammograms can find cancers that grow so slowly that they never would be noticed in a woman’s lifetime, resulting in unnecessary treatment.

 

[boedicca]

And, a mammogram CAN catch a tumor and enable a woman to get treatment to save her life.

The choice should be the woman's, not a panel of DC bureaucrats. Same thing applies to men and PSA tests.

 

[Kooshdakhaa]

Sounds familiar. Oh yeah, here it is:

"Panel Recommends Mammograms at 50 Not 40":
In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40 - NYTimes.com

Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.
While many women do not think a screening test can be harmful, medical experts say the risks are real. A test can trigger unnecessary further tests, like biopsies, that can create extreme anxiety. And mammograms can find cancers that grow so slowly that they never would be noticed in a woman’s lifetime, resulting in unnecessary treatment.

Well, in my case, this would have saved 10 years of mammograms and the radiation exposure from those mammograms. I would have done just fine starting mammograms at 50.

And the women I know who have had breast cancer, all of them were diagnosed after finding a lump during self-examination, not because of their annual mammogram.

I know mammograms do find early cancers. Oh yeah, I did get called back for further pictures one time when the mammogram showed an abnormality. Turns out it was just something on the skin, nothing to do with breast cancer and not a problem. Skin calcification. That certainly did cause a lot of anxiety, though.

 

[boedicca]

Sounds familiar. Oh yeah, here it is:

"Panel Recommends Mammograms at 50 Not 40":
In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40 - NYTimes.com

Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.
While many women do not think a screening test can be harmful, medical experts say the risks are real. A test can trigger unnecessary further tests, like biopsies, that can create extreme anxiety. And mammograms can find cancers that grow so slowly that they never would be noticed in a woman’s lifetime, resulting in unnecessary treatment.

Well, in my case, this would have saved 10 years of mammograms and the radiation exposure from those mammograms. I would have done just fine starting mammograms at 50.

And the women I know who have had breast cancer, all of them were diagnosed after finding a lump during self-examination.

Your little group is not a statistically significant sample.

I have two good friends whose lumps were discovered in their 30s via mammogram. Early detection kept them from having radical surgery later on.

I'm glad they had the choice to have a mammogram when they decided to have one.

 

[waltky]

Granny says Uncle Ferd better quit messin' with dem fats girls or his thang gonna fall off...

Is oral contraceptive pill fuelling prostate cancer?
14 November 2011 - The Pill became publicly available in the 1960s and remains a popular choice of contraceptive

Scientists say research is needed to ascertain if oral contraceptive pill use could be fuelling rising prostate cancer rates. Canadian investigators told the BMJ that they have found a possible link. But experts stress this is not proof that one causes the other and it might be a fluke finding. The researchers believe oestrogen by-products excreted in the urine of pill-users may have contaminated the food chain and drinking water. The hormone is known to feed the growth of certain cancers. The latest investigation looked at data from 2007 for individual nations and continents worldwide to see if there was any link.

The researchers found a significant association between contraceptive pill use in the population as a whole with both the number of new cases of, and deaths from, prostate cancer. This link was irrespective of the nation's wealth, suggesting it might not be down to better disease detection in more affluent countries that also tend to have higher rates of oral contraceptive use. And it was strongest in Europe. Additionally, they found no link between prostate cancer and other forms of contraception, like the coil, suggesting it is not something that is sexually transmitted or associated with intercourse itself.

'Thought-provoking'

Drs David Margel and Neil Fleshner, from Toronto University, fear that contamination of the food chain with hormones originating from the pill are the likely culprit. They stress that their work merely suggests a link and is not proof. "It must be considered hypothesis generating and thought-provoking," they say in their BMJ Open report. They said more investigations are needed and recommend close monitoring of environmental levels of oral contraceptive by-products or endocrine disruptive compounds (EDCs). Dr Kate Holmes, of The Prostate Cancer Charity, agreed that more research was warranted. "While this study raises some interesting questions about the presence of EDCs in the environment, it does not contribute to our overall understanding of the development of prostate cancer."

Jessica Harris, of Cancer Research UK, said uncertainty about the disease remained. "Comparing the rates of two apparently unrelated issues across countries is a notoriously unreliable way of establishing whether they are truly linked, because so many things vary between different countries that it's impossible to say whether one thing is causing the other. "It has been difficult to identify factors that affect the risk of prostate cancer, but we know that men are at higher risk as they get older, or if they have a strong family history of breast or prostate cancer. The disease is also more common in black men than white or Asian men."

BBC News - Is oral contraceptive pill fuelling prostate cancer?

 

[Care4all]

FYI

I just looked up the cost of a PSA test from a Lab....anyone can have the PSA done, with or without insurance for $45.....it's not that expensive, just need a doc to prescribe the test.

 

[Douger]

GBm

 

[JStone]

GBm

Heavy drinking is bad for the prostate, mick. You're done, Irish drunk motherfucker.

 

[Jos]

GBm

Heavy drinking is bad for the prostate, mick. You're done, Irish drunk motherfucker.

I have no doubt your prostate gets a good workout from your Gay lover

 

[backdouk]

The sciatic nerve starts off at the base of your spine and runs through your buttocks and then down the leg ending in both feet. It is the longest and fattest nerve in the human body and there are several things that can easily put pressure on it which can lead to severe lower back pain and leg pain.

Sometimes it is caused by just sitting in an uncomfortable chair or even lying in bed. Stress can result in muscle tightness and this can lead to pressure on the sciatic nerve. When it hurts, it is called sciatica.

Lower back pain is the number one condition that is presented to me at my Physiotherapy clinic. It will affect up to 80% of us at some stage in our lives - and it is 80% of my daily work.

Chiropractic treatment may be able to help this kind of complaint.