On the making and taking of recommendations

Every day we hear about some new medical recommendation in the popular press.  Usually what we get is an oversimplified report of the workings of a prestigious and thoughtful group, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).  This august group has the incredibly challenging mandate of making preventive medical recommendations to hundreds of millions of strangers.

"Created in 1984, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine. The Task Force works to improve the health of all Americans by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services, and preventive medications."  The key to their scope is prevention. Put another way, these are the things that you should do BEFORE something really bad happens to stop that bad thing from happening.  It sounds like an easy task, but it turns out prevention is a tricky thing.

First and…