Jama: Evidence does not show that common cancer screening tests extend lifetime

I’m a cancer researcher and the longer I’m in it the more I think we should put most of our energy and money into prevention of cancer through things we know work- diet, exercise, avoiding alcohol and smoking. Heck pay people to exercise, pay people to eat right, provide them food, I don’t know. It is so much harder to treat cancer after you have it than before. This isn’t how humans think usually- they want to fix it after. We need some new thinking.

https://cancer.org/cancer/latest-news/diet-exercise-and-your...

Yesterday's discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37296122

On average, people who buy fire insurance lose money over people who do not. This seems counterintuitive, but it must be true or the insurance companies would all go bankrupt.

That’s all this study demonstrates: On average, many screenings are more costly across the entire population than their benefits re: life expectancy.

It doesn’t mean fire insurance or cancer screenings are necessarily bad investments. Some screenings might have more harm than benefit, some insurers are scams. Many do what they’re supposed to do and insure against catastrophic individual risk.