Polite Dissent

A couple of interesting medical articles across the newswire today. The first deals with dangerous new diseases, and the second with prevention — or more correctly, when to stop prevention.

CDC Watching for Next Worrisome Outbreak [editor’s note: link now dead] discusses concerns about new and deadly diseases such as SARS, Avian Flu, and Monkeypox. It also talks about dangerous diseases like Rift Fever and Influenza. With the world becoming more and more connected by air travel, it’s easy for what once was a rare disease to spread quickly across the world. Watch for this to happen more and more frequently. This is a good article, and not too “science-y”. (This also ties in to my medical review of Elektra #32-34)

The second article, When To Quit Medical Tests Remains Murky [editor’s note: link now dead], discusses a difficult question. When do we stop testing people for cancer and other diseases? There are definite rules for when to start mammograms, prostate checks, Pap smears, and other early detection tests. But there’s no clear rules for when to stop ordering them. There’s no arguing theat these tests have dramatically increased the detection of cancer, and its survivability. But ho important is that to a 90 year old? With people living longer and longer today, this is no longer an academic question. Cervical and prostate cancer are very slow diseases, we can detect a cancer decades before it’s a real risk — so how late in life should we test? This article addresses that. Interesting, if a little dry.