Originally published July 10 2005
National Health Service funding bias against men could cost 2,500 lives annually
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Patient groups have accused the government of failing to provide a cheap and simple test for a potentially fatal stomach condition that could save twice as many lives as breast cancer screening and costs a fraction of the price.
Patient groups have accused the government of failing to provide a cheap and simple test for a potentially fatal stomach condition that could save twice as many lives as breast cancer screening and costs a fraction of the price.
They claim that men are "falling behind women" in screening programmes because there is more "political benefit" in offering tests to women.
The Men's Health Forum wants all men to be screened for abdominal aortic aneurysm, a swelling of the main artery that can burst with fatal results.
Screening one man costs �23 and the whole programme would require �8.5m a year in funding.
By contrast, breast cancer screening costs �40 per mammogram and �75m a year for the whole programme in the United Kingdom.
Alan Scott, a consultant vascular surgeon at St Richard's hospital, Chichester, and principal investigator of a 2002 study into multi-centre aneurysm screening, said: "It has taken the government a very long time to look at the information and make a decision on screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm, particularly in view of how cost-effective this would be compared with breast screening."
Others are demanding the introduction of a national prostate cancer screening programme, despite concerns about the reliability of current tests.
The effectiveness of the test used at the moment, the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, has been questioned because high levels of PSA --- a protein produced by prostate cells --- can signify benign tumours or infections as well as cancer.
Lord Steel, the Liberal Democrat peer, who survived prostate cancer after it was detected early using a PSA test, is among campaigners demanding the introduction of a national screening programme.
Professsor Alan Ashworth, director of the Breakthrough Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research, said comparing costs with lives was "cold-hearted".
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