Do the benefits of routine cancer screening outweigh the drawbacks?

Living in the twenty-first century with all the medical technology available you would think one would be indestructible. Am I right? Scientist keeps coming up with cures, and modern machines seem to detect diseases early on. Or do they? Have you ever been given bad news just to find out later it was false? This has happened to most all of us sometime in our life. Somebody is being told today they have cancer. They have instantly been thrown into a sea of emotions, caught and knocked down by every wave of evil thought. They are eventually relieved that they had denied treatment only after finding out the test was wrong. All the worry this family went through could have been avoided. Some would go ahead with treatment, finding out later that they shouldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great benefit to have all the modern updates of medical science at our fingertips. But, have we come to rely on the answers of machines rather than our own self-exams and our own intuition? Instead of being on a roller coaster of emotions, or taking dangerous amounts of unnecessary treatments, shouldn’t we wait until there’s a reason for concern and then use the force of science to combat the enemy? Until the ratio of routine screenings rise to meet a level of accuracy, I feel they are hardly as necessary as one is lead to believe. Routine cancer screenings bring too many false positives with premature and over diagnosis’s which can lead to unwanted emotions and unnecessary treatment. The fallout to some of these extraneous procedures is immense. You probably wouldn’t think there was any harm in having a routine prostate exam. Well according to the American Urological Association, Research of men 55 to 69 suggests PSA screening may prevent one death from prostate cancer for every 1,000 men screened at two-to-four year intervals over a 10-year-period (Olivier D.1). So the screenings really don’t even work, and the risk for problems is still there. Many patients don't fully realize the potential complications associated with PSA testing (Brawley D.1). [You can develop this idea – the potential complications associated with PSA. You explain the complications and discuss early detection as a cause for them. Once you identify this relation, you can convince the reader of your view.] Many of these men who are screened will be harmed because of treatments that can lead to health complications. Even a biopsy poses a potential risk for infection (Brawley D.1).
Today, when we talk pink, we as women have never been more faithful to hold up our duty to protect ourselves from this fierce predator. Although, according to clinical trials involving 600,000 women, for every 2000 women screened annually over 10 years, one life is prolonged. But 10 healthy women are given diagnoses of breast cancer and unnecessarily treated with therapies that themselves are life threatening. (Tamoxifen, for instance, carries small risks of stroke, blood clots and uterine cancer; radiation and chemotherapy weaken the heart; surgery, of course, has its hazards.) (Orenstein 36+). When I look at all the statistic and evidence, it seems to be a no brainer for meI’ve heard early detection is the key to survival. But what happens to all of those who are misdiagnosed? We could be jumping the gun. According to Beck, from the Wall Street Journal, here is what some leading cancer experts are saying. It is true that early-stage cancers are more treatable than late-stage ones, but zealous screenings and advanced diagnostic tools are finding the smallest abnormalities in the prostate, breast, thyroid and other tissues. Manyare being labeled as cancer or pre-cancer and treated aggressively, even though they may have never caused harm. These unnecessary treatments may sometimes have lifelong side effects (R01).These side effects are bad enough when truly needed, but with the hope of saving your life there seems to be no other way. The harsh reality is, people are taking the treatments simply from being diagnosed prematurely. Beck also says in her article that 60% of prostate tumors detected via screenings pose little threat in a man’s lifetime, but the surgery and radiation carries a substantial risk of impotence or incontinence. This is followed by 30% invasionbreast cancers, 18% lung cancers, and 90% papillary thyroid cancers where recent studies show they may not pose a lethal threat (R01). As much as we have been taught about preventative measures there’s no wonder we feel an obligation to this annual dread. At any cost, we will not break the trust we have come to depend on. Our lives are held in the balance, waiting on results from a single test. Is there real reason for this anticipation? One doctor doesn’t think so. For every 10,000 women in their 60s screened annually for 10 years, between five and 49 breast-cancer deaths will be averted; about 90 women will die of breast cancer anyway and 64 to 194 will be treated unnecessarily, according to a recent analysis in JAMA. An additional 940 will have biopsies that find no cancer (Brawley R01).[I like this paragraph in the essay. You present a convincing paragraph to the reader about early detection and routine tests leading to false treatments and unnecessary complications. Yo use Beck’s article as evidence to add credibility to your ideas. Good Job, Elvie]
Have you ever heard the old saying, “you are what you eat?” Well, that statement is somewhat true like that of, “you live as you’re taught.” We have been “preached” to since the late 1930’s that early detection is the only way to survive. That’s all we know, because that’s all we’ve heard. Robert Aronowitz, a medical historian once said, “When you’ve oversold both the fear of cancer and the effectiveness of our prevention and treatment, even people harmed by the system will uphold it, saying, ‘It’s the only ritual we have, the only thing we can do to prevent ourselves from getting cancer.’ ” (Orenstein 36+). I am not against taking care of yourself, and doing all in your power to stay healthy. I am here to give you real numbers so that hopefully you won’t be given a false positive.Because, the real number are saying that routine cancer screenings are giving too many false positives, with premature and over diagnosis and leading to unwanted emotions and unnecessary treatments.[You do not sum up your points in this conclusion. You can include the other points discussed in the essay about early detection and false positives regarding cancer and the other ideas discussed to support the main idea. This would give a review of the essay to the reader.]