\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tSUGGESTED VIEWING \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n The assertion that \u201cScreening saves lives\u201d\u2014or its analogue \u201cEarly detection saves lives\u201d\u2014has been repeated so many times that it has become widely accepted as truth. So you probably should hop in an MRI to see if anything is wrong. And monitor your heart rhythm on your smartphone. And check if you have early signs of dementia. And test your blood annually to look for multiple cancers. My previous two articles in this series have shown why this is a mistake.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n To persuade asymptomatic people to be screened, they must first be made to worry about diseases they might get in the future. This undermines our sense of well-being, which lies at the very core of health.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n I argued that medical care has overinvested in screening, to the detriment of human health. It doesn\u2019t reduce the overall number of deaths among those who are screened, and there are real human costs to getting ahead of symptoms. Patients are diagnosed with diseases not destined to bother them<\/a>, and are subsequently harmed by unnecessary treatment, the side-effects of medication and complications of pointless procedures. Many more face abnormal test results, triggering cascades of more testing, procedures, complications and anxiety. Some are told that, while they don\u2019t have the disease, they are at \u201chigh risk\u201d for it. More generally, screening relies on fear. To persuade asymptomatic people to be screened, they must first be made to worry about diseases they might get in the future. This undermines our sense of well-being, which lies at the very core of health.<\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tSUGGESTED VIEWING \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n And, finally, screening diverts precious resources. All of this costs time and money\u2014and a lot of it. Cancer screening alone in the US has been estimated to cost $43 billion annually<\/a>. For a variety of reasons, I think this is a low-ball estimate: the real number is closer to $100 billion<\/a>. That kind of money could go a long way toward improving treatment for symptomatic patients or, more broadly, tackling the social determinants of health.<\/p>\n So how did we get here? Why are we doing this to people?<\/p>\n First, because it feels good. Providing a concrete preventive service feels good for both patients and doctors. Most patients receive reassurance that they are well. Doctors get to check off a box, since we are frequently graded on preventive services. And then there is a lot of magical thinking: not only do we assume that more screening will save more lives, but that testing large swaths of the population will somehow save money and\u2014most egregiously\u2014reduce disparities<\/a> in healthcare outcomes.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More tests, more scans, more treatments\u2014we\u2019re told this is the road to health. It\u2019s not. In our obsession…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-35151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"related-video-image\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/255.Diagnosis-Dilusion-copy.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe diagnosis delusion
\n\t\t\t\t\tWith Gina Rippon, Alastair Santhouse, Karsten Juhl J\u00f8rgensen, Claudia Canavan<\/p>\n![\"related-video-image\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/24-03-11-brains-bodies-and-mental-health-video-talk.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tHow medicine ignores our bodies
\n\t\t\t\t\tWith David Healy<\/p>\n