Medical Malarkey

A headline on nytimes.com last night caught my attention: "Test for Cervical Cancer May Detect Other Types."  I clicked on the article eager to learn which cancers might now be treatable.  The news sounded promising.

I should have known better, for a few sentences later came the usual let-down: "But the research is early, years away from being used in medical practice, and there are caveats."

Sometimes I feel like telling medical researchers to keep their work to themselves until they have proven methods of treatment.  Such thoughts are ignorant, I realize, for disseminating information is crucial to advancing knowledge.  Nonetheless, we read these sorts of stories over and over again, raising false hopes for what's available now.

Medical research and its accompanying reporting are full of misleading, confusing information.  Take this recent one, for example.  After being told for years that most of us need to lose weight, we read in The Times that a "Study Suggests Lower Mortality Risk for Overweight People."  "Fat per se is not as bad as we thought," says one researcher, while another says, "We wouldn't want  people to think, 'Well, I can take a pass and gain more weight.'"

The contradictions are almost laughable.  It's hard to know what to do.  But continuing to view our medical profession as somehow holier than thou is misguided. 

I think the emperor wears no clothes.