I’m also suspicious that a doctor is against the PSA test. But, as it turns out, the National Cancer Institute also is warning against the PSA test:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/detection/PSA
Their argument is that sometimes radiation is unnecessary to kill the cancer, but the rads could harm the patient.
Still, I’m in favor of the PSA test. What the patient and his doctor decides to do is up to the patient.
During my radiation treatments, there was a man with prostate cancer scheduled for radiation at the same time of day. He told me that, at first, his doctors caught the cancer very early. He didn’t receive radiation or chemo - only surgery. After surgery, they told him he had nothing more to worry about.
Now, here he was again, this time receiving radiation because they found that the cancer spread to a nearby lymph node. So, you just can’t tell what will happen. I hope he’s OK.
The headline of the NY Post article is deceiving and the writers opinion only. The author of the book would disagree with such a headline.
I am about a 30 pages into the book now, which you can get at your local library. Anyway the author is the doctor that came up with the PSA test. From what I have read so far he is saying that the PSA test was basically designed only for patients with PC to determine treatment progress and not as a tool for the urology business to recruit more patients. His father died of PC and he knows that heredity plays a part in PC. The doctor says that his PSA test cannot diagnose PC.
I certainly do not endorse all of the authors’ opinons but, Like anything regarding a persons health I believe that it is important today to learn as much as possible from both sides before making irreversible decisions about surgery.
You can read some book reviews by scrolling down the Amazon webpage at the link.
AMAZON
The Great Prostate Hoax: How Big Medicine Hijacked the PSA Test and Caused a Public Health Disaster Hardcover – March 4, 2014
by Richard J. Ablin (Author), Ronald Piana (Author)
“Every year, more than a million men undergo painful needle biopsies for prostate cancer, and upward of 100,000 have radical prostatectomies, resulting in incontinence and impotence. But the shocking fact is that most of these men would never have died from this common form of cancer, which frequently grows so slowly that it never even leaves the prostate. How did we get to a point where so many unnecessary tests and surgeries are being done? In The Great Prostate Hoax, Richard J. Ablin exposes how a discovery he made in 1970, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA), was co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry into a multibillion-dollar business. He shows how his discovery of PSA was never meant to be used for screening prostate cancer, and yet nonetheless the test was patented and eventurally approved by the FDA in 1994. Now, doctors and victims are beginning to speak out about the harm of the test, and beginning to search for a true prostate cancer-specific marker.”
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The Great Prostate Hoax boldly exposes the profit, politics and fraud behind PSA screening, and the serious harm done to countless men. This is a must-read for every man, and the women who care about them.” —Margaret I. Cuomo, M.D., author of A World Without Cancer
“Dick Ablin, the discoverer of PSA, provides the inside story of how it became P$A, a veritable public health disaster, harming millions of men. The Hoax is a unique and provocative look into big medicine and why we desperately need a better way forward.” —Eric J. Topol, MD, Director, Scripps Translational Science Institute, Chief Academic Officer, Scripps Health and Professor of Genomics, The Scripps Research Institute; Author, The Creative Destruction of Medicine
“An intriguing story of how strong financial interests can trump weak data. And it goes well beyond the usual suspect – the manufacturer of the PSA test – to those who gain from more prostate cancer treatments and from cleaning up the resulting mess.”—H. Gilbert Welch MD, MPH, author of Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health
“The Great Prostate Hoax is the answer to my prayers, finally getting the message out to millions of men in jeopardy of undergoing unnecessary and debilitating treatments. Hoax sends a clear message that those who profit from PSA testing are doing so at the expense of countless men. A must read.” —Alvin Cox, prostate cancer survivor who defied a nationally renowned urologist.
About the Author
Richard J. Ablin, PhD, DSc (HON) is a professor of Pathology at University of Arizona College of Medicine. In 1970 he identified PSA—the prostate specific antigen that is used as a test for prostate cancer. For decades he has fought against the misuse of his discovery, including a 2010 New York Times op-ed titled “The Great Prostate Mistake.” He lives in Tucson, AZ.
Ronald Piana is a science writer specializing in oncology. He has published more than 400 bylined articles in leading medical journals.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Prostate-Hoax-Medicine/dp/1137278749