Categories
Cancer Medicine

“Obama’s fixin’ death panels for your mama,” the misogyny gambit, and other idiotic responses to the updated USPSTF mammography recommendations

I knew when I first heard about them that the new United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on breast cancer screening would be controversial. I tried to discuss these guidelines and the issues involved in a calm and rational way, relatively devoid of Insolence, Respectful or not-so-Respectful, yesterday, pointing out that screening guidelines […]

Categories
Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Politics

“Obama’s fixin’ death panels for your mama”: The USPSTF recommendations for mammography used as a political weapon

As I discussed in detail when I analyzed them, the new USPSTF recommendations for screening mammography for breast cancer have sparked a debate that has degenerated from a scientific and public policy debate into pure emotional rhetoric. When last I visited this topic, yesterday, I had intended it to be my last post for a […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Surgery

Six medical “myths” that aren’t

I usually don’t do requests, at least not very often. As selfish as it might sound, I do this blog mainly to amuse myself, which means that I choose whatever topics interest me and write about them. Believe it or not, I’d probably still be doing this even if my readership were 1/100 of what […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine

Cancer overdiagnosis and overtreatment revisited

I think the message may finally getting through. That message is that it’s not always the best strategy to treat cancer aggressively. Don’t get me wrong. If I have acute leukemia, I know I’ll need the big guns, every bit of chemotherapy appropriate to the disease that modern oncology can throw at it up to […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine

The Huffington Post promotes breast cancer quackery again

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a fact that is hard to escape. It’s one of those things that I have mixed feelings about, particularly now that I’ve had a close relative, namely my mother-in-law, die of breast cancer less than two years ago. On the one hand, the attention that’s brought to the cause […]