If you sit and watch the TV in the US for a few hours, you will be subjected to ads showing tough-looking men in their 60s proudly sporting padded crotches. These are explained not as codpieces for macho dudes with young mistresses but as “male incontinence garments.” Diapers, in other words.
We all know the story: many women lose urine as they age; their “pelvic walls” were stretched by childbirth. But men have prostate enlargement and tend to get blockage rather than leakage. What is this marketing about “protection” for them? And how can these pads possibly be a $4 billion US industry?
Various conditions, such as Parkinson’s Disease, can produce male incontinence, but the most common cause is a routine complication of “radical prostatectomy” surgery. This procedure should almost never be performed and the numbers prove it. I tell the story in Butchered by “Healthcare:”
THE PROSTATE CANCER MEAT GRINDER
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Eric Hoffer
Urology’s approach to [prostate cancer] has undergone an embarrassing outing. The specialty traditionally recommends that the surgeon draw blood for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). The urologists also insert their finger into the patient’s rectum to feel for prostate lumps.
If the blood test is high, or the surgeon feels nodules, they stick a large needle repeatedly through the rectum into the prostate to get tissue samples. If the biopsy shows cancer, urologists recommend perilous surgeries or other alarming therapies. This system has been discredited because it never improved survival rates for early disease.
The cancer is present but inactive in most men over 50. Only about twelve percent of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lives, and their five-year relative survival rate for this cancer after it is diagnosed (the percent with the disease who are alive compared to matched controls) is 97.8 percent. Ignoring it in the early stages produces the same results as treatment, but without the horrific surgical complications. The commonly performed operation, a radical prostatectomy, causes death in 1/200. Compromised or ruined sexuality and uncontrollable urination requiring diapers are common, often for the rest of a man’s life.
Some patients already have metastatic cancer before surgery. In these cases, it kills the patient even though he has suffered through the grisly procedure and recovery.
The PSA test is unreliable. It increases with any irritation of the gland due to factors such as infection or even bicycle riding. Antibiotics or anti-inflammatories are the treatments, not surgery. The vast majority of these tumors grow so slowly that death occurs from something else before the disease becomes an issue. PSA is little help to identify aggressive cancers that would be fatal.
Here is a little math: The USPSTF (US Preventive Services Task Force) did a large-scale analysis of the research literature. They concluded that for every 1,000 men ages 55 to 69 who had their PSA checked every one to four years for a decade, it would save one man from prostate cancer. The number needed to test is 1000, over 10,000 patient-years, and who knows how many tests, possibly 50,000.
Even if you believe these small numbers are meaningful, the cost-benefit ratio is terrible. False-positive PSAs lead to biopsies, which have complications just like the true positives. Men with biopsies that show cancer get surgery or other treatments. The harms resulting from these interventions include erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, serious cardiovascular events, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and occasionally death. Checking PSA in asymptomatic men produces no improvement in survival.
The American Veterans Administration “PIVOT” trial compared surgery versus observation for localized prostate cancer over 13 years. There was no statistically or clinically significant difference in either all-cause (absolute survival) or even disease-specific mortality (relative survival). Prostate removal surgery is a net harm.
A Scandinavian study looked at 695 men with prostate cancer. They were divided into two groups. One had radical prostatectomy surgery, the other “watchful waiting.” With the surgery, the men were half as likely to die of the cancer (relative death rate). Their overall death rates from all causes (absolute deaths) at five and ten years were identical to those who did not have the surgery. Other researchers support these results.
By 2013, urologists partially responded to the heckling from the rest of the medical community. Their new guidelines recommended “individualizing” this test using “shared decision making” between physicians and patients for ages 55 to 69. This is misguided. Otis Brawley, head of the American Cancer Society until 2018, told the story of an unfortunate patient who was victimized by this system in his book How We Do Harm (2012):
Ralph entered the prostate cancer meat-grinder after he had his PSA drawn in a shopping mall at a free cancer screening event. It was 4.3. He had twelve painful biopsies. Two of them showed a moderate grade cancer in about fifteen (15) percent of each specimen. Ralph read everything he could. He decided on robotic surgery because the advertising said it was “advanced.” It left him impotent and incontinent, and he required diapers for the rest of his life. His PSA several months later was .9. It would have been zero if the surgeon had entirely removed his prostate. He became obsessed with the idea that he still had cancer. So he went to a radiation oncologist who obligingly treated him with “proton beam therapy.” When he began seeing blood in his stools later, his surgeons found a fistula. This is a connection between his urethra (urine tube) and his bowel. It was confirmed when he began passing bowel gas from his penis. The surgeons treated him by sewing his colon to the front of his abdomen with a “colostomy,” which required him to change a bag containing his stool several times a day. They also created a similar passage from his bladder to his belly, a urostomy. He still had both when he died of a severe urinary infection a few years later. He was 72.
The urologists, or at least the male ones, do not seem to understand the PSA math. Eighty percent of them, along with half the internal medicine specialists, continue to test their own PSAs. Patients have little chance of understanding any of this if most physicians do not.
Like other diseases with expensive treatments, the prostate cancer industry has nonprofit “advocacy” associations growing in a dense thicket all around it. These universally promote PSA screening, which starts the cascade of billions of dollars of medical services. One organization, Us TOO, is 90 percent funded by the pharmaceutical and device companies that profit from this prostate circus. Zero, formerly the National Prostate Cancer Coalition, has funding from Amgen, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Cytogen, Merck, Pharmacia, and Pfizer.
Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Depends incontinence diapers, is another donor. Prostate cancer surgery sells a lot of adult diapers for them. Zero and the others claim to be independent, unbiased grassroots groups that are not beholden to any company.
Shared decision-making is an abdication of responsibility. We are losing trust in advisers who cannot advise. Fewer and fewer will shoulder responsibility in this age of lawsuits. Other People’s Money, a book about finance, explains the issue: “A good lawyer manages our problem; a bad lawyer responds to every issue by asking us what we want to do. When ill, we look for a recommended course of action, not a detailed description of our ailments and a list of references to relevant medical texts. The demand for transparency in finance is a symptom of the breakdown of trust.”
I recommend men pretend they do not have a prostate unless they get symptoms. (Disclaimer: I am not a prostate specialist. There may be advantages to these treatments that I did not find. Prostate cancer therapy has common themes with the rest of medicine, however. It is complex and there are conflicts of interest. The treatment studies have large numbers, small differences, and outsize claims.)
Many men cannot wrap their heads around the idea that they should not allow urologists to mess with their prostate. If you still do not get it and you think that there is merit in identifying prostate cancer at an early stage, consider magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and, if necessary, laser treatment by a radiologist. These are currently the least invasive test and therapy. If the MRI shows a tumor is likely, an imaging specialist can put a guided sampling needle into the suspicious area(s). This results in a diagnosis rate of 90 percent after only one or two sticks.
Contrast this with the usual dozen “random” biopsies that discover only about half of the cancers. You are left sore and in limbo, anticipating a new round of biopsies a year later. Or, if you received a cancer diagnosis, you have to start considering radiation or horrifying, ineffective surgery on your most private parts.
With MRI guidance, however, a laser can be used accurately to burn tiny spots of cancer. You do not get complications from surgery or radiation you never have. Only a few centers in the USA offer this expensive but safe and accurate method. These include Desert Medical Imaging (now Halo Diagnostics) in Palm Springs, CA, and with affiliates nationwide. They also offer a non-invasive treatment for benign prostatic hypertrophy using this same technology.
Since radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer is a multi-billion-dollar surgical industry, these radiologists receive a brutal reception at urological surgery meetings and are not allowed to speak. But the standard approaches are outdated, deforming, require years of care, and the math does not support them.
Note well: all of these therapies are doubtful because the radiologists, like the surgeons, mostly treat low-grade prostate cancer, which rarely kills anyone. Since I can do without needles stuck in my tender places, I refuse to check my PSA ever again unless I have symptoms.
Prostate cancer that has spread or metastasized outside the gland is a different issue. This has been treated effectively and inexpensively using synthetic estrogen for more than 50 years. Some doctors still do this. Bio-identical estradiol is available now and should be used instead of the older estrogen compounds. For many patients, this suppresses the tumor, and they feel fine. The PSA should be checked at intervals to be sure.
Casodex and Lupron are the patented, expensive anti-testosterone drugs that are the current “standard of care” for metastatic prostate cancer treatment. They typically work for about five years, then cancer comes back. They cause heart disease, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, and make patients feel terrible. There is speculation that they produce more deaths than they prevent—recall the Hormone Blockers Ruin Health chapter.
PS: I had a lot of praise about the Ken Stoller interview.
“That was a jam-packed fascinating interview. I hope you do at least one more with Dr. Stoller. Will be sharing.”
“So informative…and wow, the connection between vaccines and is well outlined…as a mater of fact, between all diseases for which no $$ drugs could help enormously…”
HERE is another one if you want more. Passcode: g1*+aP&%
The Cassandra’s Memo ebook is free HERE if you promise to send this download link to five or more others. With your help, we will educate some people sitting on the fence. If you have time to write a review at Barnes and Noble, click HERE and scroll down the page until you see the blue “review” button on the right.
BONUS: I am also giving away the Hormone Secrets and Butchered by “Healthcare” ebooks using the same arrangement; you can download them free HERE and HERE if you promise to send the links to your friends.
We are in an information war. As Peter McCullough says, once someone sees, they cannot unsee. You are drafted—but only if you give a damn—to start a Substack, upload your entire phone list, then mail them every week as I suggested HERE in “Your Conscription Notice Into the Revolutionary Army.” You have something to say, and even if you doubt that, you should copy and send out the words of others. If you think this is too much work, contemplate what it was like at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War. You may soon find yourself in a situation like that.
Substack Love
Many Uros I know were all too happy to put patients through the PCA meat grinder. Money, power, control. Sound familiar?
My father, a surgical orthopaedist, said that most men die with prostate cancer, rather than dying from it.
Thanks for an overview of this topic!!
Robert. you know the story, but I will reiterate. My 85 year old husband’s PSA results were 8.46. Anything above 4 was considered high. The nurse practitioner from MaleExcel told him to take bactrim (I forget how many milligrams) twice a day for 30 days. I called you and asked if this was the correct treatment. You said, you mean she didn’t tell him to get a biopsy? Well, he took the antibiotic, and his PSA is now 1.24. I personally know a gentleman that had his prostrate removed, and it is a sad state of affairs. Thank you for continuing to address the issues that are taboo to most in the medical community.
Most elevated PSAs are infection. (Prostatitis)
And often the ‘infection’ is Candida, a yeast that also causes the swelling of the prostate tissue. Info re: reproductive organ cancers / yeast here: http://www.knowthecause.com
https://youtu.be/jNIzQApjWTY
The YouTube “The Problem with the PSA” – exactly the article.
Same thing with the ads for catheters – I could not figure out why so many people were evidently using urinary catheters like never before. Every time I see something advertised more than usual, I wonder if it isn’t connected to the adverse effects of the DNA-changing mRNA injections. Why not urinary leakage too? Cancer, heart disease, blood clots, psoriasis and on and on. Very few connect the dots. The cure is worse than the disease.
Get stuck on Diazide or Lasix and you can answer half your statement. Water Pills seem to make RR use more frequent, and it’s easy to misjudge how much time you can hold urine. One elderly OB/GYN told me once the urge hits don’t wait more than 5 minutes, it increases the risk of a UT.
Shingles JABS which we know are a side effect of the Jab are being highly advertised for that jab. Old Feinstein had a really bad case of them.
I saw ads for catheters for YEARS before covid. I always attributed it to the aging population.
A medical doctor and a butcher wear the same coat for a similar reason
Mostly used in Nursing Homes, where there are too few Aids to change bed sheets. Plus they will add a Puddle Pad if they leak from being worn too long. Typical skin issues then occur just as they do for babies not changed often enough.
I have not read all the comments, but I think a revision may be needed here, given the new incidence of turbo cancer of the prostate since the advent of Covid shots.
Invaluable information! Thanks for the write up.
Thank so much for an insightful review to prostate cancer which I will put to good use. I’ve been evaluating mine for 5 years. Two points I’d like to raise.
1. You advocate for laser surgery as the least invasive. But HIFU and cryo are minimally invasive too. What is your opinion of them?
2. You suggest MRI for investigation. Liquid biopy is now cutting edge with several players. What is your opinion of the new liquid biopsies?
Tnx,
Plus, insurance won’t normally cover an MRI as a beginning test. You have to go through an entire series of testing before you’re allowed to have an MRI.
Yes you have to pay for MRI. Otherwise you are left with a less precise estimate of what’s going on. I don’t know about HIFU vs laser but suspect it’s less accurate because as I understand it, laser is done under MRI guidance. The cryo tech is older and less accurate. The diagnostic accuracy of these modalities is not the main point I was making. All these treaters are mostly doing unnecessary procedures on people who have little chance of benefiting. So my advice is take your time, do free consults with everyone you can, and walk slowly toward your decision. Most should do nothing or maybe just get one or two MRI directed biopsies. Start if you are early by never getting PSA to begin with. If you have metastatic prostate ca, a whole other set of decisions face you. The usual disclaimer: not medical advice use at your own risk etc. etc. etc.
Thank-you!
Initially I rejected biopsy and went to Mayo for an MRI which Medicare paid for.
Nice. My friends have been cleared by the mri alone.
See below
Preview: https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/c005db8c-c52d-4a7d-a24e-d693512882cc
Another really important topic. As usual, FOLLOW THE MONEY! Thanks again for all you are doing to wake people up!
Lack of regulation, allowing lethal medicine for $$$, is just part of the plan to reduce the population:
The full PLAN exposed:
https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/the-plan-revealed
Thank you for the very informative post. My friend has late stage prostrate cancer and Iu2019m going to see what the medical profession treated him with
“Late stage?” I have info about estradiol treatment for disseminated prostate cancer but these things are individualized.
Preview https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/c005db8c-c52d-4a7d-a24e-d693512882cc
Btw Iu2019ve seen these diapers in super markets in Chile.
I have a leakage problem that these pads will definitely help with. It’s my mouth and my wife will say that after stuffing a sock in my mouth one of these pads will seal the deal.
I’ve never heard of this “product” before. Great reporting. This reminds me so much of the hysterectomy scam that is an “easy” butchering of women who don’t need it, but makes for a nice boat payment.
I think the hysterectomy statistic is that 40 percent of American women get them. C sections are similar. The sweet spot for lowest mortality for the latter is 15 percent
While the subject was sad your delivery was hilarious. Such an indictment against the medical establishment.
KEC is a local friend.
My friend and I discussed your post over a drink. She had no idea these products existed. I had no clue they existed due to unnecessary medical intervention. I hope the post is widely shared.
At least go to PubMed with one’s health issue. type in “issue + prevention + antioxidant” You may find something good (before PubMed gets completely corrupted).
see what I did:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=saw+palmetto+prostate+cancer
Of course I already have read about Saw Palmetto, so I know it works well for BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia). It seems to have an effect against cancer as well. My search got 80 results.
Keep hunting!
I am pleasantly surprised that PubMed seems, so far, an open-source database for real research. For how much longer, I don’t know.
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/dr-robert-malone-fifth-generation-warfare-and-sovereignty/
Jack please reply to any of my posts and I’ll share my cell number if you want to talk. Thanks
this is worth looking in its entirety
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/the-kay-griggs-story-the-complete-interview-1998/
getting started on this
GEEZ
This is good too: https://youtu.be/jNIzQApjWTY
Good grief…what horror stories. I am 73 and to my knowledge have never had a PSA test. At this time in my life, I don’t see the point. I have already decided to not have any radiation or chemo if I do get cancer. I will try natural remedies which I trust far more than anything the modern stone age medical system offers. This is advanced medicine? These butchers can hack on some one else. I will die eventually, but I will never sacrifice myself to these bozos.
Here’s a preview post as your prize:
https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/c005db8c-c52d-4a7d-a24e-d693512882cc
https://truthcomestolight.com/500-australians-join-worlds-first/
Thanks Dr. Yoho. Small semblance of ethical prostate cancer emerging slowly in UK.
USA will always go for the making money option unfortunately.
UK information. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/prostate-cancer/treatment/
PSA surveillance is a mistake to begin with. The numbers do not support it. (Use this info st your own risk etc.)
Same if you have gallbladder surgery, greasy foods affect your urgent need for the RR, for Diarrhea, unless you are the rare one who works the opposite, you end up on Miralax, and you have the bad habit of putting in the water first. With shaky hands, Pour in dry, then you can put the excess back in the bottle.
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/epstein-calendar-reveals-shadow-nobility-running-the-world/
I canu2019t telll you what an answer to prayer this article is. So my husbandu2019s PSA was a five. He is a retired internist and has only known u00ABu00A0medicineu00A0u00BB as most 65 yr old MDs, until now, or until Covid. Now he sees and processes differently. But when his PSA came back a five elevation from last years 3 he went ahead with the MRI. Two minuscule nodules rated 4 demand the biopsy. That was supposed to happen today but they were short on their techs so he was rescheduled. I had already told him that there was no need to biopsy but his children, 4 grown daughters and not so much our son, insisted. But I did say that no one is doin nothin to the family jewels as far as u00ABu00A0radiation or chemou00A0u00BB. He has had a vasectomy and reversal this the superfluous daughters, and a later vasectomy at 50 when I was too old to old to get pregnant. God was so good to give us more children with the reversal. I told him that this is probably scar tissue or something that has come up from all the messing around with the vasectomies and reversal. So what do I tell him. I had no idea the biopsy was what you explained it to be. He didnu2019t tell me bc he knows I would say u00ABu00A0no way!u00A0u00BB. We are people of faith and I believe that this delay for the biopsy was Divine intervention.
Dr. Brian Ardis does a whole podcast on prostate health