<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>valenterry</author><text>We need yearly scans or even monthly scans (MRI) for everyone. Privacy concerns aside, I think we would learn an awesome lot. We could then monitor changes over time and machine-learning could probably get really good at recognizing what changes are harmless and which are harmful and need a doctor to look into.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a dream scenario, but maybe some day it will be like that. Or it will be like that and be dystopia. :)</text><parent_chain><item><author>picture</author><text>Routinely scanning people without symptom or otherwise cause for concern is not a good idea. The human body is very messy and variable, and it&amp;#x27;s hard for anyone or anything to reliably spot thing that are actually worth acting on. If the doctor spots a vague blob - how can they know what it is without any symptoms? The course of action is then &amp;quot;come back in three months for another scan.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Subjecting a population to unnecessary routine full body scans, especially with radiation, will cause harm statistically. There are also countless examples of people undergoing unnecessary operation and suffering complications, like losing a perfectly fine healthy heart and requiring transplant.</text></item><item><author>beefman</author><text>Virtually all deaths from solid cancers are preventable with routine scans to find tumors before they metastasize. Doctors have for decades refused to learn to use this technology.[1-4][5-9] *&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, population studies like the one this article is based on[10] are horseshit because they are subject to unknown degrees of sampling bias, rely on enormous assumptions (such as linear relationships which may not hold at all being applied over many orders of magnitude), and cannot in any case establish causality.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pocus.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pocus.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.butterflynetwork.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.butterflynetwork.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.exo.inc&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.exo.inc&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [4] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;vavehealth.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;vavehealth.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[5] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ezra.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ezra.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [6] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.halodx.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.halodx.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [7] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.prenuvo.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.prenuvo.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [8] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.simonone.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.simonone.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [9] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lifeimagingfla.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lifeimagingfla.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;* Compare the experience of getting an x-ray from a dentist to getting one from a doctor. Or getting an ultrasound from an OB to getting one from any other doctor.&lt;p&gt;[10] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;35988567&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;35988567&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Almost half of cancer deaths are caused by smoking, alcohol, or obesity</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02355-x</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ssivark</author><text>&amp;gt; especially with radiation, will cause harm statistically.&lt;p&gt;Ultrasound is not radiation (as in photons). To the best of our understanding (from a physics&amp;#x2F;engg perspective) ultrasound imaging capped by appropriate energy&amp;#x2F;etc limits is expected to be perfectly safe. Likewise with MRI. If we want more pointed study to be sure of this, that&amp;#x27;s fair, but let&amp;#x27;s be clear &amp;amp; specific about it and commit to figuring it out one way or another so we don&amp;#x27;t repeat the same discussion a couple of decades down the line. (We have to think of moving the state of the art forward, instead of festering in unresolved disagreements)&lt;p&gt;Further, if you&amp;#x27;re concerned about under-studied possible side-effects of radiation from occasional diagnostic testing, what do you plan to do about being blanketed by mm waves once 5G gets deployed more ubiquitously?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; There are also countless examples of people undergoing unnecessary operation and suffering complications&lt;p&gt;This sounds far more serious (and fixable) compared to the physics&amp;#x2F;biology interaction of diagnostic testing. Why do we continue to bury our heads in the sand collectively, instead of trying to fix this with better decision-making tools?</text><parent_chain><item><author>picture</author><text>Routinely scanning people without symptom or otherwise cause for concern is not a good idea. The human body is very messy and variable, and it&amp;#x27;s hard for anyone or anything to reliably spot thing that are actually worth acting on. If the doctor spots a vague blob - how can they know what it is without any symptoms? The course of action is then &amp;quot;come back in three months for another scan.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Subjecting a population to unnecessary routine full body scans, especially with radiation, will cause harm statistically. There are also countless examples of people undergoing unnecessary operation and suffering complications, like losing a perfectly fine healthy heart and requiring transplant.</text></item><item><author>beefman</author><text>Virtually all deaths from solid cancers are preventable with routine scans to find tumors before they metastasize. Doctors have for decades refused to learn to use this technology.[1-4][5-9] *&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, population studies like the one this article is based on[10] are horseshit because they are subject to unknown degrees of sampling bias, rely on enormous assumptions (such as linear relationships which may not hold at all being applied over many orders of magnitude), and cannot in any case establish causality.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pocus.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pocus.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.butterflynetwork.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.butterflynetwork.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.exo.inc&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.exo.inc&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [4] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;vavehealth.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;vavehealth.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[5] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ezra.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ezra.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [6] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.halodx.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.halodx.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [7] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.prenuvo.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.prenuvo.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [8] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.simonone.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.simonone.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [9] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lifeimagingfla.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.lifeimagingfla.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;* Compare the experience of getting an x-ray from a dentist to getting one from a doctor. Or getting an ultrasound from an OB to getting one from any other doctor.&lt;p&gt;[10] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;35988567&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;35988567&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Almost half of cancer deaths are caused by smoking, alcohol, or obesity</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02355-x</url></story>