That didn’t take long. After the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force gave a thumbs down to routine PSA tests to screen for prostate cancer in healthy men, the anecdotes have come out in force. (NYT story on the recommendation)

Understandably, we’ve heard well-intentioned stories about men whose cancer may not have been diagnosed but for the PSA test. Take this blog post by Josh Goldstein on the website of Jefferson University Hospitals: A PSA Test Led John to Have His Prostate Cancer Treated.

We will see many such stories. But it’s important to understand that the pleural of anecdotes is not data. You won’t be hearing too many stories about the men who received unnecessary treatment for a disease that wouldn’t have killed or disabled them. (Here’s one by AP’s Marilynn Marchione.)

Here are some worthwhile stories to put this debate into perspective:

NYT magazine: Can Cancer Ever Be Ignored?

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, M.D., Deputy Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society: U.S.Panel Says “No” to PSA Screening

Op-ed by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch in NYT: You Have to Gamble on Your Health

Posts from the Incidental Economist

Quoting from Dr. Len’s blog post:

As someone reminded me recently, anecdote is not a form of evidence. And for PSA screening, unfortunately, according to the Preventive Services Task Force, the evidence just isn’t there.

It’s always hard to learn that the emperor in fact has no clothes. The sad reality, however, is that this debate is not about a fairy tale. It’s real life, my friends. And people have been hurt, and doctors have been deceived. At least, that’s what the Task Force is saying.

Maybe it’s time to listen to evidence instead of hope. Sometimes that’s hard to do.