American Cancer Society’s Brawley: “Prostate cancer screening clearly saves lives: THAT’S A LIE.”

Dr. Otis Brawley has taken the gloves off on prostate cancer screening.

Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, makes some powerful statements about controversies in prostate cancer screening in a new YouTube video that is billed as the first of a series that the Cancer Society will post on discussions with ACS officials.

Key nuggets from this video – not surprising to anyone who has followed this debate or Brawley’s past comments – include these quotes:

“I’m very concerned. There’s a lot of publicity out there – some of it by people who want to make money by recruiting patients – that oversimplifies this – that says that ‘prostate cancer screening clearly saves lives.’ That is a lie. We don’t know that for sure…

…We’re very concerned about a number of clinics that are offering mass screening where informed decision making – where a man gets told the truth about screening and is allowed without pressure to make a decision – that’s not happening. Many of these free screening things, by the way, are designed more to get patients for hospitals and clinics and doctors than they are to benefit the patients. That’s a huge ethical issue that needs to be addressed.

We’re not against prostate cancer screening. We’re against a man being duped and deceived into getting prostate cancer screening.”

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