It depends on the screening test. Some are very good - like colonoscopy. Others can cause more harm than good on average - PSA is a great example.

Early detection is absolutely the way to go, how to do it for any given condition is the hard part. Many cancers have no screening tests because it is a hard to develop good, quality tests (good sensitivity and specificity). Just testing because it can be done is usually a very bad idea.

"The problem is important in any area where a less-than-perfect screen is used to detect a rare event in a population"

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a perfect screening test for anything in medicine. Some are better than others, but none are perfect. This is a very difficult concept for most people, unfortunately, and for many insurance companies.

It is not such an issue for the better screening tests such as colonoscopy but it is very difficult for things like PSA where there is a large body of evidence it can do more harm than good on average if used routinely even within the recommended ages. For a patient, you're lucky if you can have a meaningful discussion in 5-10 minutes which is an awful large chunk of an office visit that usually has >4 talking points.

It is a problem for doctors and insurance companies because some well intended person with the insurance company will decide to measure the quality of its doctors (which I support in theory) by measuring, for instance, the percentage of age and gender appropriate patients under the care of a given physician that have their PSA checked annually. The problem is, there is absolutely no concensus in medicine that it should be checked regularly as a screening test. I'm not sure I want mine tested when the time comes around unless my family history changes between now and then. So to measure a physician by this marker or other screening tests is fraught with problems, since many patients might opt out for very good reasons. Also, I'm not going to recommend any test because an insurance company wants me to, only if it is right for any given patient.

Bottom line is there are no perfect tests and testing is not always the right thing to do. Most people do not understand that because it is a hard concept to grasp.

I read the article. I did not see that part having read it now several time It said that new customers and those that qualify will get the discount. The 'those that qualify' it implied were the people at the end of their contract. I'm not sure how this is any different then other cell phone providers.

I have to agree. I'm not a cell phone guru by any measure, but only offering the discount rate every two years seems to be a fairly standard term in my experience.

Isn't this what relakks already is? I thought the same guys the run TPB run relakks and relakks is nothing but an encrypted VPN, right?

I would argue you survive because you have students who are willing to pay to be taught by you, not the other way around.

You made an educated decision, I would guess, when you decided to do what you did. That was your decision, live with it.

Please. A significant number of MD's do other things that purely practice clinical medicine, such as research. Plus, many PhD's never really contribute in any meaningful way to society or their field of practice. "A few years of residency" can range from 3 years to 7 or even 10 years depending on the training.
One year of residency is much more time consuming and stressful than any PhDs I've known. I'm not trying to make this a PhD vs MD rant, you did that, I'm just trying to point out some gross exaggerations and factual errors in your comment. I have quite a few PhD friends I have nothing respect for, actually. They agree you're making some way over-the-top gross exaggerations.