Prevention

There is an interesting report on our morning paper promoting whole body MRI screening for occult cancer. The same study appears formally in the Hong Kong Medical Journal at the same time.

This is of course an admirable marketing strategy – which we can discuss later. As a lover of philosophy, I am more concerned about the very question: how are these participants going to die ?

Look, this is a game of zero return (零和遊戲). By reducing the mortality of cancer – if this kind of screening really could – there would be more deaths from atherosclerotic diseases, infection, degenerative diseases, or something that we never dream of.

For sure, seeing an increase in mortality of that very something, we put more resource there. Mankind has become the First Emperor (秦始皇) and medical researchers Xu Fu (徐福). We set off to find the immortal medicine – knowing perfectly well that nothing of that kind exists. (A few Xu Fu of us certainly have the wit and try sending occasional good news to the Emperor – so as to prove they worth their salt, or worth more salt.)

And, unlike our famous predecessor, we have no fairy island ahead of us to settle.

PS. Rather than publishing in HKMJ, I find this article more suitable for journals of a much higher impact factor. For example, the Journal of Biological Chemistry would be a perfect choice – according to their regulation, any paper published in JBC with page charge should state that it is an advertisement.