False positives, real profits: the dark side of cancer screening

Medical care has overinvested in screening, to the detriment of human health. It doesn’t 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, 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, procedure