Prostate Cancer Screening Controversy
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A government task force says doctors should no longer perform prostate cancer screenings on healthy men.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says the screenings do more harm than good.
The PSA, which measures a protein called prostate–specific antigen, often leads to unnecessary needle biopsies for men who don't have cancer.
What's worse is those biopsies lead many men to be treated for slow–growing cancers that are harmless.
The task force says treating harmless cancers cannot help men but *can* increase the odds of making them impotent or incontinent.
Treatment can even be deadly.
The recommendation applies to healthy men of any age, though not for those who've been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
A new problem called forest fragmentation is supposedly behind an increase in ticks and tick–borne illnesses.
It's a process caused when people move away from cities into suburbs and closer to wildlife Increasing interaction with ticks.
Not to worry though, experts say there are ways to be more prepared.
"Because it's so hard to find ticks and some people may never know that their pet was bitten by a tick in the first place, talk to your veterinarian about a screening called the Snap Test. What that is, is it's a simple fast, easy test to detect tick–borne illnesses in your pet," said veterinarian Ruth MacPete.
The CDC says tens of thousands of people are also infected with tick–borne diseases annually.
Dogs can sometimes guard against them.
