Pull The Brake On Private Health Screenings

Summary:
Present day Doctor’s leaders demand restrains on the rapid growth in private screening clinics offering services costing more than £1.000. They feel that patients are being exploited due to “irresponsible” marketing of health screenings. The British Medical Association and the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges wrote a letter to health secretary Andrew Lansely explaining some of the downsides. There are significant risks with direct-to-consumer tests. Private companies ignore these risks and are only highlighting the benefits of such screenings. A lot of these tests are also inaccurate, which either falsely reassures people or depresses them because the screening resulted in a disease. Meldrum and Douglas ask the government to introduce tougher regulations on the marketing private screening tests to make sure it is factual and balanced.

Opinion:
I think it is a good thing to regulate the marketing on private screenings because a lot of people are just being scammed through these. I feel that if you really want to find out if you are sick, you are either already showing some pretty obvious symptoms or you should just go to the hospital and ask if they can check you. I think that the risk of just losing your money while not getting anything in return is far too high. So making sure the rules on private screenings are firm enough is in my eyes a great solution to this problem.

Article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-1631000-body-scans-that-ought-to-come-with-a-health-warning-2008808.html