Three wrongs: mammography screening, psychiatric diagnoses and forced treatment
This month, I published three articles that might be of interest for my Substack subscribers. I provide short summaries of them below, which come from my tweets (@Pgtzsche1).
The Three Big Lies about Mammography Screening
In invitations to screening, women have been told, for over 40 years, by professional associations, screening advocates, screening researchers, cancer charities, and national boards of health, that by detecting cancers early, screening saves lives and leads to less invasive surgery.
Cancers are not detected early; the average woman has harboured the cancer for 21 years before it can be detected on a mammogram; screening has no effect on mortality; it leads to more surgery; and more women lose a breast. Moreover, between a quarter and half of women who go to screening will experience at least one false positive, which can cause distress for several years.
Screening is harmful and should be stopped. I dedicate my article to all women invited to mammography screening and those who love them.
Psychiatric Diagnoses Cannot Attack People, But the Reification of Mental Health Issues Is Harmful
Psychiatric diagnoses are not monsters that can attack people, but the reification of mental health issues is harmful. It is circular reasoning (tautology); it provides people with pseudoexplanations; and it gives the power to the psychiatrists to define who you are while ignoring the real issues, which could in some cases have cured you by focussing on the root causes for your issues. Instead, arbitrary and unscientific diagnoses lead to huge overtreatment with harmful drugs.
Allen Frances, chairman for the DSM-IV task force, which updated the psychiatric diagnosis manual used in the USA, has argued that the responsibility for defining psychiatric conditions needs to be taken away from the American Psychiatric Association because new diagnoses are as dangerous as new drugs.
Psychiatric Patient Won a Forced Treatment Case Against the Norwegian State
This is unprecedented and therefore very significant. It is very difficult to win lawsuits about psychiatry, even when gross malpractice is involved and the psychiatrists have violated basic human rights, national laws and international conventions about forced treatment.
The legal protection psychiatric patients have can best be described as a sham. As usual, the key psychiatrist for the State lied in court, and the judge at the lower court was unprofessional and ruled against the law. I also document that Norwegian psychiatry is at a catastrophically low level and that key opinion leaders disinform society about their specialty.
