[csee]

> “The chance of breast cancer is so low, so why are you doing it? I think it’s purely a marketing thing.”

This mindset is ingrained in every doctor I speak to, but I think it's just so wrong.

Take DiGeorge syndrome. You have a 1/4000 chance of having it, and the test carries an 81% chance of a false positive. The above doctor calls this "marketing"? Foolishness. That's an incredibly useful test. The downside is small, and the upside is asymmetrically large.

We need far, far better screening for all sorts of things. Adult cancer and heart screens once a year, prenatal screening, and on. We do a good job with breast and prostate screens, but for rarer conditions our current approach of waiting for the disease to be symptomatic makes no sense. Part of that will be driving the cost down. There is so much market need for a legitimate version of Theranos and I'm glad there are some companies working on these things.

[lostlogin]

> We do a good job with breast and prostate screens

Do we? Unless I'm missing something, breast cancer is a huge killer and PSA tests are deeply imperfect. I am very much not expert in these areas.