THE KEY TO HEALTH REFORM IS REDUCING CONSUMPTION:

I was a 23-year-old investment banker, working ludicrous hours in New York and training for marathons on the side, when cancer first entered my life. In the three decades since, the disease has been perhaps not a constant companion, but certainly a ride-along. I did not always hear it; it was not always speaking loudly. But it was back there somewhere.

And now that there is a possibility that my cancer has returned, questions about some of the decisions my doctors and I made in those early days have resurfaced.

Was my radiation really necessary? Could we have more thoroughly discussed the poor base of research related to my type of cancer, and would knowing more about the uncertainties and potential long-term complications have made a difference in my choices?

Is the way we treated my cancer back then the reason I'm still here 30 years later, or is it the cause of the new nodules discovered in my neck? Both?

On a daily basis in the U.S., unnecessary medical tests, treatments, and surgeries actively harm patients at astounding rates. Physicians fail to adequately inform subjects about the downstream risk of procedures. The pharmaceutical and biomedical industries influence doctors' decision-making, actively bias major product research, pay key players to grease the skids for expanded sales, and ignore or obscure the harm some of their medicines and devices can do.

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