In June 1999 the U.S. Postal Service planned to issue a stamp urging “annual checkups and tests” for cancer of the prostate. the New England Journal of Medicine warned against such foolishness, pointing out that the message was “inconsistent with current scientific evidence and thinking within the medical community.”17 Second, we would not subject tens of thousands of men to invasive and potentially harmful surgery and other equally unproven interventions without fully informing them of the uncertainty that shrouds the treatment of prostate cancer.
