As chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, Otis Webb Brawley — who is also a professor of oncology and epidemiology at Emory University — is the public face of the cancer establishment. He operates in a world of similarly high-achieving, multiple-credentialed, respectable professionals, where insults tend to be delivered, stiletto-style, in scientific language that lay people aren’t meant to understand. So it can be more than a little jarring to hear, for example, James Mohler, chairman of the urology department and associate director of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, say of his friend: “I have known Otis for over 20 years. He doesn’t come off as being ignorant or stupid, but when it comes to prostate-cancer screening, he must not be as intelligent as he seems.” Or Skip Lockwood, the head of Zero, a prostate-cancer patient advocacy group, charge that Brawley is more concerned about saving men’s sex lives than about saving the men themselves.
Brawley has become the target of these attacks because of his blunt and very public skepticism about the routine use of the prostate-specific antigen, or P.S.A., test to screen men for early prostate cancer. “I’m not against prostate-cancer screening,” Brawley says. “I’m against lying to men. I’m against exaggerating the evidence to get men to get screened. We should tell people what we know, what we don’t know and what we simply believe.”
This is a long article but a good one and submitted to me by a reader as a comment. Ole Otis is back, you know the epidemiologist that compared the PSA to the Tuskegee experiment.
So what’s wrong about him and others recommending to have your prostate biopsy for an elevated PSA only if you have symptoms? Well if you wait that long it is too late my friend. Go to the Flickr sidebar and the illustration that shows that most cancers are posterior to the prostate urethra and hence no symptoms voiding. Why does Brawley the spokesman for this disease and the ACS know this? How can this be. I think he says outlandish stuff to get attention and an attempt to be relevant…ole Albin surfaced in this piece as well… Search this site for Albin and Brawley…I have had fun with these characters.
Remember the white jackets in front of the White House and the Health Care Bill build up? Government employed, institutional employed doctors in the iconic white jacket supporting national health care. Was Brawley in there. Again…follow the money….hint the recommendation about mammograms issued and then retracted….all about money.
Oh yea…the picture… they don’t have names yet but two new buddies for Penelope…weinner dogs
How about Shultz and Fraulein?
Or…Playboy and Pumpkin
Or..Dapper Dan (the male is a dappled dachshund) and Baby Girl
Developing……
Prostate Diaries 