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#overdiagnosis — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #overdiagnosis, aggregated by home.social.

  1. CW: John Harris on Wes Streeting and the "overdiagnosis" trope

    "Why is our health secretary picking over the number of diagnoses, when he could be focusing on why our systems of work, education and care are still so closed off to the people who get them?"

    The ever-excellent John Harris dissects the nasty "overdiagnosis" trope, currently promoted by Wes Streeting and our nightmare Labour government. His style is calm and balanced, but I can feel the underlying rage.

    John Harris is a good man.

    theguardian.com/commentisfree/

    #autism #ADHD #overdiagnosis #WesStreeting #UKpol #Labour #JohnHarris

  2. 🧵 1/2

    I've just finished "The Age of Diagnosis" by Suzanne O'Sullivan.

    The author, an Irish neurologist, claims that we are becoming the victims of overdiagnosis and overmedicalization.

    Overdiagnosis - a term with which I was not not hitherto familiar - "refers to a diagnosis that is correct but which does not benefit the patient and may arguably do harm. Overdiagnosis occurs when a medical problem is detected at a stage when medical treatment is not really required".

    Overmedicalisation "occurs when ordinary human differences, behaviour and life stages are given medical labels..."

    I found this book thought provoking, in particular with regard to the author's challenge to commonly held assumptions about the benefits of screening and pre-emptive testing. I also thought her warnings about the dangers of thinking of diagnosis as a technical procedure rather than a physician's attempt to explain symptoms should be heeded.

    Links to a couple of reviews can be found here: floss.social/@rdnielsen/114478

    Some will disagree in the strongest of terms with her arguments about diagnosis creep with regard to autism, ADHD, and Lyme disease. This critical review accuses O'Sullivan of a poorly informed paternalism: mastodon.ie/@Tupp_ed/114609317

    Although I am not going to discuss those specific issues, I do worry that....

    #TheAgeOfDiagnosis #SuzanneOSullivan #Health #Medicine
    #Overdiagnosis #Overmedicalization #Overmedicalisation #Medicalization