I wrote this essay in response to Michael Langan’s piece (reblogged on this site) on the crucial importance of diagnostic accuracy (6/5/2015)

Very pleased to see Michael’s explanation of diagnostic accuracy, especially in his coverage of the dangers of false positives.

While he covered it elsewhere in his blog, it bears highlighting that while a “false positive” in clinical medicine can lead to more refined testing before one begins on a costly treatment regimen, a “false positive” in forensic medicine can lead not only to loss of one’s right to practice but in fact to one’s very freedom. And, since the very test that is yielding the false positive is explicitly known to produce such, the likelihood that more people are going to be falsely deprived of their civil rights and their fundamental liberty is concomitantly higher. PHPs and Medical Boards know this and have been complicit with this scam.

This would be bad…