Posted on 10/26/2025 9:06:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
It’s not just women that Cartel Medicine feeds on, although it does prefer them.
Men are also meat for the grinder, especially when their privates are involved.
The screening hoax we witnessed with mammograms has a counterpart with prostates and the PSA test.
The predation here is especially synergistic as the maiming and destruction caused by prostate interventions feed two sub-Cartels: those of erectile dysfunction and incontinence. The adult diaper business is thriving because of this butchery.
Urologists, not wanting to be left behind by pediatricians, psychiatrists, cardiologists, dermatologists and dentists have their own cozy racket.
With thanks to Richard Ablin and Ronald Piana for telling the truth.
Let’s start with an analogy.
Analogy Imagine you're the owner of a large orchard filled with thousands of apple trees. You know that some of these trees might have a disease that could potentially kill them, but it's rare - only about 3% of your trees will actually die from this disease. The rest will live out their natural lives, disease or not.
Now, a salesman comes to you with a new "revolutionary" test that he claims can detect this disease early. He suggests testing all your trees regularly. It sounds great at first, but there's a catch:
The test often can't tell the difference between healthy trees, trees with harmless spots, and trees with the actual deadly disease. In fact, it's wrong about 80% of the time. When the test says there's a problem, you're forced to cut off large branches from the tree to check if the disease is really there.
For every 1,000 trees you test, you might save one tree from dying of the disease. But in the process, you'll unnecessarily damage hundreds of healthy trees. Many of these trees will never produce apples again, some will be permanently stunted, and a few might even die from the damage caused by your well-intentioned but overzealous pruning.
What's worse, the salesman and the pruning company are making a fortune from all this testing and pruning, which costs you millions every year. They're so invested in this process that they resist any suggestion to change it, even when other orchard experts start to question its value.
This is essentially what's happened with PSA screening for prostate cancer. The test, like our hypothetical orchard test, is often inaccurate. It has led to millions of men undergoing unnecessary biopsies and treatments, which frequently result in life-altering side effects. All of this for a disease that, in most cases, would never have caused them harm. Meanwhile, the medical industry has profited enormously from this process, creating a powerful incentive to maintain the status quo despite mounting evidence of its flaws.
The book's main message is a call to recognize this situation for what it is - a public health disaster driven more by profit than by sound medical science - and to advocate for a more measured, evidence-based approach to prostate cancer detection and treatment.
12-point summary
Here's a 12-point summary of the book, including key data and statistics for those that don’t want to read the longer Q&A below.
1. PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) is not cancer-specific. It's present in normal, benign, and cancerous prostate tissue. There is no specific PSA level that definitively indicates cancer.
2. Routine PSA screening leads to significant overdiagnosis and overtreatment. For every 1,000 men screened, only 1 man may avoid death from prostate cancer, while many others suffer unnecessary biopsies and treatments.
3. Prostate cancer is age-related. About 40% of men aged 40-49, 70% of men 60-69, and 80% of men over 70 have prostate cancer. Most of these cancers are slow-growing and unlikely to cause death.
4. The lifetime risk of dying from prostate cancer is only 3%, meaning 97% of men will die from other causes, even if they have prostate cancer.
5. Radical prostatectomy, a common treatment resulting from PSA screening, often leads to significant side effects. Up to 60-80% of men experience erectile dysfunction and 10-20% have long-term urinary incontinence.
6. PSA screening has not significantly reduced prostate cancer mortality. Studies show similar death rates between screened and unscreened populations.
7. The PSA test has a high false-positive rate of up to 80%, leading to many unnecessary biopsies and treatments.
8. Active surveillance is increasingly recognized as an appropriate option for many men with low-risk prostate cancer, potentially avoiding unnecessary treatments and their side effects.
9. The U.S. healthcare system spends an estimated $3 billion annually on PSA tests alone, with billions more on subsequent procedures and treatments.
10. New technologies like robotic surgery and proton beam therapy, while heavily marketed, have not shown superior outcomes to traditional treatments but are significantly more expensive.
11. Conflicts of interest are prevalent in prostate cancer care. Many researchers and physicians promoting PSA screening have financial ties to companies that profit from increased screening and treatment.
12. The FDA approved the PSA test for screening in 1994 despite significant reservations from its own advisory panel. This decision, along with aggressive marketing by medical companies, led to widespread adoption of PSA screening before its benefits and harms were fully understood.
I am in the same boat.
Prayers for you.
A couple of weeks ago through a blood test I found out my PSA level is 2.6 which is low . Didn’t get the glove exam but was examined via ultrasound . Also had an enhanced contrast CT scan of bladder , kidneys , etc...I’d been experiencing some blood in urine and semen . Had blood tests and urinalysis AND cystoscopy and nothing was found . I was put on meds and haven’t experienced any blood in weeks . I’m in hospital now in Japan for another illness so can’t see my urologist until I’m out which I hope will be this week so still don’t know the cause of the blood .
As others have pointed out, the absolute PSA value isn’t everything. Just watch the trend. Digital exams are no fun, but I don’t think the doctor enjoys them either. It’s a medical procedure that’s intimate and undignified without being sexual in any way, despite all the lame jokes.
Anyway, if you live long enough, you’re bound to die of something. I never really expected to make 30, so I’ve had a lot of bonus years.
“There is no specific PSA level that definitively indicates cancer.”
No one ever said there is. Its a statistical model that depends upon age and most importantly, sudden increase in PSA over baseline.
I hope it all turns out well for you.
thanks . typing with left hand as i am getting my daily intravenous med . nurse just told me that it looks like i will not be released until next tuesday - my 18th day , exactly the same amount of time i was i hospital i july , that time for rare nocardiosis . this time they found a different baceteria in my system causing fever , etc...had blood in stool a couple of times so after tests recommended a colonoscopy .
“Genes count.”
Undeniably.
The only thing in our family is high cholesterol (no pattern of CVD), and guess what every doctor wants to do to each of us...
Your info is spot on. Today’s MRI’s are highly sensitive. If the PSA is above the norm (or baseline), the next step is to repeat the PSI. If still above the norm or baseline, then the next step is an MRI. If the MRI shows a suspicious area, then the next step is to biopsy the suspicious area.
Can we start a gout thread?
No, it’s too painful :)
Avoid the triggers.
At my last prostate exam, I asked my doctor where I should hang my pants. He said "next to mine".....
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