Hospital Relationships With Direct-to-Consumer Screening Companies

The debate over direct-to-consumer (DTC) screening companies intensified recently as Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization, sent letters to 20 hospitals on Jun 19, 2014, urging their leadership to sever business relationships with HealthFair, a prominent DTC screening company. Public Citizen states that HealthFair's "heavily promoted, community-wide cardiovascular health screening programs are unethical and are much more likely to do harm than good," and they cite peer-reviewed evidence in support of their claims. Here, Wallace et al investigate the net benefit with the tests and treatments of hospitals and DTC screening companies.