Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease

Why wouldnt you want to be screened to see if youre at risk for cancer heart disease or another potentially lethal condition? After all better safe than sorry. Right? Not so fast says Alan Cassels. His Seeking Sickness takes us inside the world of medical screening where well-meaning practitioners and a profit-motivated industry offer to save our lives by exploiting our fears. He writes that promoters of screening overpromise on its benefits and downplay its harms which can range from the merely annoying to the life threatening. If youre facing a screening test for breast or prostate cancer high cholesterol or low testosterone someone is about to turn you into a patient. You need to ask yourself one simple question: Am I ready for all the things that could go wrong?