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Depends on your situation, but yes... they can be bad. First of all, false positive tests are a thing. It happens. More importantly, let's say you are diagnosed with something untreatable and terminal. Do you really want to know before you have to? Or perhaps it's something technically treatable, but with a low chance of cure and at a high cost to quality of life?

The thing to think about when you test for something, is what are you prepared to do about it if the results are positive? Not everyone will answer this question the same way.




Yeah, having looked at some of the potential outcomes of false positives, I have no interest in whole-body scans. One day they'll be a great idea, but for now, I'm skipping them.

As one example of many, consider prostate cancer screening: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/811846




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