Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by astura 2395 days ago
I'd suggest reading these to get a better idea of the potential harms of screening tests in the asymptomatic population:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screeni...

https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the_screening_test_t...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-against-early-...

1 comments

This is true for any medical act you perform on a massive scale really. Including vaccination, supplementation, etc. Everything is a cost/benefit ratio.
Yes, and this math has been done on many of those interventions (certainly for vaccination) and the benefit holds up. That statistical base rates are problematic for cancer detection is a pretty well-understood problem.