BMJ - Citizens’ juries can bring public voices on overdiagnosis into policy making

Hi, Mods. Please feel free to move to a better place, wasn't sure where to post this. Thank you.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1092150889874378753


https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l351

 

That's what I was going to say.

This just sounds like more rationing of care and a back door way in for all those "experts" who say diagnostic testing just encourages pwME in our "fantasies" of actually thinking we have a disease. Arrrggg!!!

 

I don't want to hear a single thing about overdiagnosis until they have fixed underdiagnosis, and I am happy to tell them so.

 

PS, I think the concern originally stems from diagnosing "pre-diabetes" and getting too many mammograms*, and also high blood pressure, and screening for thyroid cancer, but a strong focus on avoiding overdiagnosis probably has an effect on people not getting diagnosed, especially if they don't have an obvious presentation of a well-known disease.

*[NB: the screenings may not be causing the cancers, as the video implies--most people have about 100 cancers that their immune system is able to handle; so the increase in small cancers probably contains a lot that didn't need treatment... but screenings often use ionizing radiation, so it's possible]

 

This seems to be saying:

'If you have some bee in your bonnet about medical policy and don't like what the experts say, why not some of those dumb ordinary people to back you up?'

There was a guy called Trump who preferred guns to abortion who did that.

And in both scenarios the agenda was really being driven by others' financial interests.

 

Thanks. Lots of good points. I'm was too foggy to read the article in detail.

What was on my mind is all the suffering and loss due to overdiagnosis/misdiagnosis of psych.

I was wondering if we could get rid of the overdiagnosis of psych then we could actually get to a diagnosis for lots of people or not be thrown into a harmful wastebasket of a psych condition that one does not have.

Do you think this can be useful to help with the overdiagnosis of depression, anxiety. psychosmatic and other psych? So practitioners would dig deeper and find the medical diagnosis or admit that science does not know all.

Probably we all have known people and many of us who have had serious testable and treatable medical things going on yet we are quickly diagnosed as or written off as a psych condition.

Getting rid of the overdiagnosis of psych would help all patients and our community tremendously. This has been on my mind for years even more so with each loss and all the suffering in our community and with hearing last year all that one of our beloved community member went through the last several months of his life due to this.