Strange Medical Expenditures

Here's a way to save some money in health care: eliminate screening for PSA (prostate specific antigen). As the discoverer of PSA explains in this op-ed, we spend about 3 billion a year on this screening, and it tells us almost nothing about our health. One study found that PSA screening detects 3.8% of prostrate cancers.

The medical community is slowly turning against P.S.A. screening. Last year, The New England Journal of Medicine published results from the two largest studies of the screening procedure, one in Europe and one in the United States. The results from the American study show that over a period of 7 to 10 years, screening did not reduce the death rate in men 55 and over.

The European study showed a small decline in death rates, but also found that 48 men would need to be treated to save one life. That’s 47 men who, in all likelihood, can no longer function sexually or stay out of the bathroom for long.

We could save a huge amount of money if we would just stop doing things that do no good.