The Treatment Trap: How the Overuse of Medical Care Is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do to Prevent It
Grants program director Gibson and World Bank economist Singh present a riveting case against the “more” culture of American medicine that is a natural development of the ideology that fueled the nation’s settlement and frontier expansion but that, applied to health care, facilitates alarming results. When emphasis shifts from scientifically weighing risk against patients’ potential medical benefit to maximizing health-care professionals’ profits, consumers pay more for often unnecessary tests, treatments, and procedures, and they and the system suffer. Medical overuse occurs because it can. Doctors’ autonomy within “a self-sealed system” keeps scrutiny at bay, leading to the overemphasis of dire prognoses and the domino effects of extra testing despite the increased likelihood of false positives and NIH warnings about the carcinogenicity of X-rays. And the affects of medical overuse for the sake of money aren’t only physical. A disproportionately frightening diagnosis “changes your view of your body and your life,” one research scientist says. Including an appendix of “Twenty Smart Ways to Protect Yourself,” this compelling argument may attract plenty of attention. --Whitney Scott