Forbes: The Department of Health and Human Services' Death Panel

[Patricia M. McBride]

They want to kill people off apparently, and their polices will do just that. We can't get rid of these folks one minute too soon. They are a detriment to the health of every American!

11/03/2011

This article originally appeared in the Nov. 21, 2011 issue of Forbes magazine.

We already have one. It’s called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a committee of “experts” appointed by the Department of Health & Human Services. This group recently de-clared that men should not be routinely screened for prostate cancer. The most common test is the PSA, which is part of a blood test. The panel also said no to rectal exams and ultrasounds, claiming that testing does no good, that it doesn’t save lives.

Two years ago this task force said wom-en under the age of 50 shouldn’t get annual mammograms—a “finding” so preposterous even the Department of Health & Human Services ran away from it.

This latest dictate is meeting the same fate. And rightly so. After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer found in men. Last year it killed 32,000 people in the U.S. The panel’s tortured reasoning is that oftentimes traces of cancer in the prostate don’t lead to a full-blown attack that can kill the patient. True enough, as far as that goes. But the panel ignored the inconvenient fact that physicians have a measurement called the Gleason score to determine how dangerous the disease is. If that score is low doctors will take a watchful attitude; if it gets high they’ll recommend action.

I know. A routine rectal exam last spring resulted in an alarming finding, subsequently confirmed by an ultrasound and a biopsy. The Gleason score was flashing red, so my prostate was removed, and—knock on wood—it seems the disease was caught early and successfully.

The task force makes a big deal about the unpleasant side effects in treating prostate cancer. But with a disease like cancer I’ll take the side effects of treatment over letting nature take its course.

You’d never realize it from this panel, but the death rate from prostate cancer has dropped 40% in recent years, the result of a combination of early detection and better treatments.

What’s going on with mammograms and testing for prostate cancer? At bottom, it’s an attempt to save money. Treatments are not cheap. The panel claims that its recommendations won’t increase mortality, which is about as convincing as saying that letting mosquitoes proliferate in certain environs won’t increase the incidence of malaria.

If the government succeeds in dominating health care, as it’s now on its way to doing, we can expect more of these weird and lethal findings. The focus will be on rationing and saving money. What we need in health care is more free enterprise, not Soviet-style controls.