Too Much Medicine

The medical writer at the Washington Post has a short article today arguing that the medical industry is thriving by scaring us. And we are way too anxious.

Along with osteoporosis and osteopenia, we now have a whole raft of pre-diseases that doctors want to screen us for -- and that drug companies are only too happy to remedy. There's pre-high blood pressure and pre-diabetes, which your doctor can supposedly diagnose even when your blood sugar is perfectly normal. If you've been to the dermatologist lately, maybe you had some "pre-cancerous" spots removed. These may well have been actinic keratoses, which, despite the scary name, almost never develop into an aggressive form of skin cancer. Get them removed if they're unsightly, but there's no cause for alarm if you don't. Then there's the mother of all pre-diseases, high cholesterol -- which is a risk factor, for heaven's sake, not a death sentence. Yet one creepy Pfizer ad for the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor that appeared a few years ago used a female corpse to exhort women in their 50s to get their cholesterol checked. Know your numbers. Ask your doctor. Be afraid -- be very afraid.