Spot the Prostate Cancer Hoax!
” PSA is a barefaced lie as the PSA is not specific for the prostate or for prostate cancer “
” most published medical research is false and healthcare is largely financially driven”
“…messaging by prostate cancer support groups and foundations lacks all credibility because they receive significant sponsorship and support from Big Tech and those in the business of prostate cancer.”
When Bert Vorstman MD chose the byline Is the cure worse than the disease? in his recent The Active Surveillor article discussing his perceived truth about prostate cancer, it raised a huge red flag for us at AnCan. If you live with anything more than Gleason 3+3 disease, there is no cure. And doctors who speak about cure will invariably backtrack and agree that they should be speaking about a durable and contnuing remission, a phrase coined by the late Dr. Snuffy Myers.
Vorstman is correct in saying that PSA is not specific to the prostate gland – the salivary glands produce it too, but it’s no ‘barefaced lie’ and raises another red flag – that further tests are needed to find out why PSA is elevated.
I am loathe to use the title Dr. when this MD claims that most published medical evidence is false. I can’t pretend to imagine the standard of his medical education in New Zealnd. But I can agree with Vorstman and his Ablin sidekick, Ron Piana, that some 3+3 prostate cancer should not be named cancer and calls for surveillance rather than surgery or radiation.
That’s about all we do agree on. Both fail to appreciate AnCan’s position that the PSA test is about information, not treatment. So discouraging PSA testing throws the baby out with the bathwater. Where are we supposed to source this headsup information elsewhere? Despite repeated request in the comments, that I urge you to read, nothing is suggested.
I had a PCP who didn’t believe in PSA testing. My PSA leapt from 2 to 10 in 2 years and had it not been for my uroogist, who I was seeing for a kidney cyst, I would now be the wrong side of the grass with no AnCan. There are many, many men like me – ask the minions of de novo metastatic men showing up in our support group weekly.
Is the cure worse than the disease? is ignorant. It patently fails to acknowledge that many men with prostate cancer require treatment to avoid a prolonged and painful death.
You decide if AnCan provides a distorted message and if the prostate cancer world is one big, distorted financial scheme. Is that ‘The Great Prostate Hoax’ (Ablin & Piana) or are they the hoaxsters?
What concerns us equally at AnCan is how The Active Surveillor can publish this nonsense, followed only days later by this headline “Don’t miss your PSA screening—your life may depend upon it”.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, in fact many of you have heard the expression, “Opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one!” And I’ll add, some people confuse what comes out of one with what comes out of the other.
That said, we don’t have to provide a soap box for opinions that confuse our core audience, and even discourage them from maintaining best medical practices to addres their condition. Howard Wolinsky publishes The Active Surveillor – AnCan loves Howard the way you love that gnarly old uncle who pinches your cheek while sticking a buck in your pocket. He’s truly a treasured member of AnCan’s Advisory Board, and occasional Active Surveillance Moderator.
Raising this post in various AnCan Groups has educated me to understand that Howard’s journalist instinct encourages him to publish all sides of an issue. AnCan’s postion is that anything discouraging men from PSA testing inhibits efforts to fight prostate cancer. We are not just critical of HW; we suggest it seriously questions his credibility when he then encourages men to get tested a coupleof days later. What to believe? Don’t be an enabler.
What do you think? In the Vorstman/Piana post, Howard encorages you to let him know – please do! howard.wolinsky@gmail.com