| A recent ad in the Wall Street Journal promoted $500 body scans, $500 virtual colonoscopies, and $200 calcium heart-scoring, all for healthy people who just want a check-up (wait 'til they find out that the special "pre-holiday" prices are about the same as as the post-holiday prices). An article in the Journal described the booming market in MRI head scans, of drastically varying quality, that one can get for about $1,000-$2000 even if you're not showing any symptoms of illness (Americans are spending billions on these). Such scans are not too likely to turn up tumors and other problems at a medically-useful, crucial juncture, but they often produce false positives signs of possible illness that will require further expensive tests or sometimes expensive but unnecessary surgery. To help you make an informed decision about whether to go in for a scan, we subjected Roy D. Bear to a full BearScanTM and offer the results for your perusal, along with Roy's post-scan thoughts on whether to seek further tests or treatment: |
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