Download or read book Educated Guesses written by Louise B. Russell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1994-02-11 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standard recommendations such as annual Pap smears for women and prostate tests for men over forty are in fact simply rules of thumb that ignore the complexities of individual cases and the tradeoffs between escalating costs and early detection, Russell argues. By looking beyond these recommendations to examine conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of screening tests, Russell demonstrates that medical experts' recommendations are often far simpler and more solid-looking than the evidence behind them. It is not at all clear, for example, that annual Pap smears are effective enough in reducing deaths from cervical cancer to justify the enormous additional costs involved in testing all women every year rather than every three years. Nor is there solid evidence for the value of prostate cancer screening, despite recommendations that all men over forty be tested annually.