DOES GREED AND TECHNOLOGY OVERULE COMMONSENSE?

health care is our number one provincial expenditure with education being number two. I've long known of the gross mismanagement and preposterous priorities in our educational system along with the systemic waste of tax dollars. I've had my suspicions with health care and according to this opinion piece in today's Waterloo Region Record we are both wasting hundreds of millions of dollars but also damaging our citizens health. So much for the Hippocratic oath and do no damage.

The article is titled "How perfectly healthy people are turned into patients". This is a scary title because firstly we supposedly have scarce health dollars available so why are we wasting them on healthy people? Secondly it gives rise to suspicion that health care has become nothing more than a business and that business requires marketing in order to increase the market base. This is grotesque and perverse. The writer of this article (Alan Cassels) does not suggest anything nefarious. He does however make it clear that he believes that there are way too many early medical screenings and tests prior to any sysmptoms or other evidence of disease. Furthermore he believes that evidence exists that particular testing such as for breast, lung and prostate cancer has many false positives and is unreliable. It's worse than unreliable in that these tests and followup tests actually can cause harm to otherwise healthy people. This gentleman's opinion piece needs serious study and certainly does not increase confidence that the medical /health industry are solely looking out for the public interest.