By Prof. Dr. med. Dr. phil. Nikola Biller-Andorno
Director, Institute of Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Safra Network Fellow, Harvard University (13-14)
Visiting Professor, Div. Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School (12-14)
It is amazing how much heat a report can draw that simply states what has been all over town for some time now: We do not know if mammography screening does more good than harm, we do not even know for sure if it does any good at all.
The Swiss Medical Board, an independent health technology assessment initiative that was started in 2008, stated that based on the empirical data availability the introduction of mammography screening all over Switzerland could not be recommended.
As could be expected the report drew fire. Curiously, one of the chief complaints was that it was “unethical” to upset women who might no longer know if screening was good for them or not.
This sounds just a little bit paternalistic – particularly given that we know that most women seriously overestimate the benefits of screening when making their decision, a point that my colleague Peter Juni and myself illustrate in a Perspective piece published on May 22, 2014 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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