One Man's Treasure is Another Man's Garbage

Imagine that you had an intaglio press in your basement. It can churn out crisp twenties at your whim.

The Secret Service calls this counterfeiting. They will hunt you down with extreme prejudice and haul you off to Federal Court. The same thing will happen to you if instead of the intaglio press you have a computer and hack/create some digital money out of nothing.

Contrast that with the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. They do have both magic machines - intaglio presses and computers that create digital money ex nihilo (out of nothing).

This is called "monetary policy" and amounts to about one trillion dollars per year.

To recap: If you print or create money in your basement, it's called counterfeiting. If the Federal Reserve does the same thing, it's called monetary policy. Go figure!

Prostate Health

Prostate Health

I am willing to bet that 99% of my blog readers are male. That’s an observation, not a judgment. I’m a geeky guy and this blog is geeky. For reasons beyond my comprehension, it seems most geeks are guys. If you’re a geeky chick, I am happy to have you as a reader. However, you can probably skip this post, or you might refer it your husband or guy friends. Thus, this post should be especially important to those 99% of my readers.

I have been mentally writing this blog for a while and now it is time for the real thing.  (Note: I am not a medical doctor.  You should research what I am saying and consult with competent medical professionals.) (Aside: Does anyone ever consult with incompetent medical professionals?  If so, do they admit to having consulted with incompetent medical professionals? If you saw an incompetent medical professional, what would they look like? How would you tell they’re incompetent? etc. etc. End Aside) 

Let me begin. 

Dr.Nortin Hadler has said, “no man should think that [prostate] surgery will increase his time on earth.” 

Who is Dr. Hadler and why should you care? click here 

That is a pretty strong statement and I owe it to my readers to back that statement up with some hard facts.  That statement also directly conflicts with what you have seen on freeway billboards and read in popular health magazines.  Right now you should be experiencing some mild cognitive dissonance.  It will get worse before this article is over, but I believe that this post will ultimately make your life better or save you from type II medical malpractice. (medical stuff done well by doctors that doesn’t benefit you, the patient!)

What does Dr. Hadler mean? When autopsies are performed on men who have died at ripe old ages, 85% of them are shown to have had prostate cancer.  However, they did not DIE from prostate cancer.  That is an important distinction.  Their prostate gland was cancerous to some degree or another, but the cancer did not kill them. Furthermore, Dr. Hadler also says that if you are male and over age 65, you should assume that you have prostate cancer.

Ok, then what should you do about it?  Do you worry about prostate cancer taking your life.  If you are thinking about getting screened for prostate cancer, consider these three things:

1. Is the screening test accurate?
2. Is the disease important?
3. Can anything be done to the disease that will benefit the patient? 

I quote from the book, Worried Sick by Dr. Hadler,

"First, screening must detect something that is meaningful to me, some important disease or high likelihood of an important disease. Second, the screening must be efficient; it must have few false positives and few false negatives. And finally, if a true positive is detected, something meaningful can be done about it, something that provides much more benefit to me than harm. Screening for prostate cancer fails on all counts."

He continues

 
 15% of men with erectile and urinary dysfunction after surgery!!! Whoa!

Dr. Hadler refuses to undergo PSA screening.  Perhaps we men should consider doing the same?  Take time to read the chapter on the "Beleaguered Prostate" on Amazon and make your decision.