ACS on PSA
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is urging doctors to talk frankly with their patients about the risks and limitations of the PSA blood test used to screen for prostate cancer.
The problem with PSA screening is that it has the potential to detect all prostate cancers, whether they are harmless, potentially metastatic, or actually metastatic, so you have a lot of men subjected to the negative consequences of biopsies and surgery who don t necessarily need them, says Dr. Whelan. ACS backed off their recommendations of routine PSA tests years ago, but they are stepping further back now. This leaves us with the dilemma: who should get the PSA test? This is not clear. It has kind of left us in a state of limbo.
It s very analogous to the recent mammogram debate, says Dr. Ross. If your goal is to find every mammographic abnormality and take them out, you ll get rid of a lot of breast cancers that way, but you re also doing a lot of harm to women whose breast cancer wouldn t be life-threatening. It s even worse in a way with prostate cancer, since almost all elderly men will be found to have some cancer cells in their prostates. Now ACS is actually advocating doctors advise patients seeking PSA tests to consider the downsides, which can be very severe, including incontinence, impotence, and many other problems.
Smoking and Prostate Cancer
Reuters reports, Cigarette smoking may increase a man s risk for developing and dying from prostate cancer, pooled data from twenty-four studies involving 21,600 men with the disease indicates.
This caught our attention because prostate cancer was not previously associated with cigarette smoking, says Dr. Whelan. That doesn t mean it isn t, but we need more information. Our book on the effects of smoking is quite up to date, but it doesn t mention prostate cancer.
This report is based on several meta analyses from several different data sets, so it s hard to get a coherent message out of this, says Dr. Ross. Obviously, you can t come close to a cause-and-effect statement from a meta-analysis or series of them, but this is a hypothesis-generating study, so a prospective study should be done to pursue the validity of a causal link between smoking and prostate cancer.
Dr. Carpenter: Cell Phones = Cigarettes
Maine s Health and Human Services Committee held a hearing on a bill that would make Maine the first state to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer. According to the Associated Press, David Carpenter of the University of Albany warned Maine lawmakers that, We can do nothing and wait for the body count. That s what happened with smoking.
Dr. Carpenter is a toxic terrorist dating back decades, says Dr. Ross. Cigarettes are the best thing that ever happened to alarmists like him. They say terrifying things about how something is dangerous and your fetus is born polluted, and the industry and scientists do studies and say, There s no data to support that, and these activists posing as scientists always come back with, That s what the cigarette industry said!
The AP report continues, Dora Anne Mills, director of the state Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said research by federal health and safety agencies does not justify a warning, although she acknowledged that uncertainty exists about the effects of long-term cell use...But Mills said that if the state was to require warnings on everything with undefined risks, everything from apples to xylophones would have to be labeled.
Tobacco Lozenge Battle Rages On
Yesterday, R.J. Reynolds and Star Scientific defended their right to produce dissolvable tobacco products that mimic breath mints and breath strips.
Again, the whole point is that this is one of many products that could be extremely helpful to smokers trying to quit cigarettes, says Dr. Whelan.
Dr. Ross adds, Those who equate tobacco with evil fail to consider the fate of over 40 million addicted smokers in the U.S. And the Appleton reason for trying to get the funds is laughable: They assert that tobacco lozenges would undercut the Wisconsin Clean Air Act!
Curtis Porter is a research intern at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org).