Panel recommends against ECG tests for heart disease

Reuters ^ | Jul 31, 2012 | Genevra Pittman

[neverdem]

Testing electrical activity of the heart using an electrocardiogram is unlikely to help doctors figure out who is at risk of coronary heart disease, according to recommendations from a U.S. government-backed panel.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force wrote on Monday that there's no good evidence the test, also known as an ECG, helps doctors predict heart risks any better than traditional considerations such as smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol levels in people with no symptoms.

"It could potentially be helpful if we had evidence that doing a test like an ECG or an exercise ECG would better classify the people who are at high risk" of heart disease, said Joy Melnikow, a member of the task force from the University of California, Davis.

"Then we could intervene more actively with the very high-risk group which has the highest potential to benefit."

The task force, which published a statement in the Annals of Internal Medicine, recommends against ECG screening of people considered at low risk for heart disease and says there's not enough information to rule one way or the other on those at intermediate or high risk.

On the other hand, there are both costs and possible harms associated with screening healthy adults, Melnikow said.

"The concern is that if people are already at low risk of heart disease and they have one of those tests, if they have an abnormality on the test it's more likely it will be a false-positive result," she added.

"But an abnormal result, whether a false positive or true positive, generally leads..."

--snip--

The new recommendations are an update of the USPSTF's 2004 guidelines, which also called for no screening in low-risk adults and said there was insufficient evidence to assess the risks and benefits for screening intermediate- and high-risk people...

[TurboZamboni]

Study questions CT scans to rule out heart attacks

http://www.twincities.com/ci_21156833/study-questions-ct-scans-rule-out-heart-attacks

next to go are CT scans...maybe divining rods will replace them.

[Ragnar54]

The point is that there are some conditions that can only be detected by an ECG. An undetected condition can easily result in a premature death. It should be up to each individual to make the cost/benefit analysis. The state is presuming the right to make that choice, and the state has a bias against helping the individual survive. I don't advocate "giving everyone in the country" any test. But the state has no business taking over medical care and making what amount to life and death decisions.

[1010RD]

OBAMA:...the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve...

Replace Obama with any socialist or elite. The word 'evidence' and 'improve' aren't used in the normal sense of the words. The needed societal proscription has already been determined. Now the facts must be extrapolated in such a way as to confirm the 'correct' answer.

The above statement by Obama can be applied to any liberal idea. Gun control, free markets, individual liberty, marriage, etc. all fall under this design.

Think of every liberal attack against American freedom. The facts don't ever add up under scrutiny, but once the meme is determined they know they're right no matter what. To stand against them makes you a conspirator against 'real' progress (finally).

I'd suggest that at the heart of the progressive movement is idolatry. Liberals want to be God. 'They are the gods that would be.' Eugenics, anti-human attacks against both liberty and progress and every program are all built around creating man in their image.

If Cass Sunstein were your neighbor you'd warn your kids to stay away from him. In most American communities someone espousing his ideas would be ostracized. Yet at the academe he's a hero and the more education people receive the more likely they are to agree with Sunstein.