I've been speaking out for years on the wrong-headed mantra of early diagnosis for cancer.

Some so-called experts want you to believe it saves lives. But I've seen it ruin more lives than I care to think about. Finally, the science is starting to back me up on this one.

Researchers say that the latest data shows that MRI exams, which are known for catching breast cancer and other tumors especially early, are more likely to lead to aggressive treatment for breast cancer.

But here's the catch: women who get these expensive high-tech exams don't live longer than women who don't. Plus, they don't have a lower rate of recurrence, according to commentary published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

If that's the case, why get them in the first place?

That's the question I've been asking for years.

As scary as this might sound, many people live with cancer, never knowing it's there. In fact, by the time you reach a certain age, odds are pretty good you have a tumor somewhere in your body. But the odds are just as good that it'll never give you any trouble, and you'll eventually die of something else entirely.

But regardless of how life-threatening the tumor is, you want the cancer out. Now. And doctors are only too happy to comply. That's when it begins: the traumatic cycle of tests, treatments, surgical procedures, radiation, drugs and therapies -- all of which are potentially more dangerous than the cancer ever would have been.

While there are aggressive cancers that need to be dealt with quickly and completely, most of the ones that show up in early tests are slow-growing cancers with excellent long-term survival rates.

You can read more about this in the August issue of The Douglass Report.

In the meantime, don't join the cancer panic, and don't get screened just for the sake of being screened. Only bother with it if you have a reason, like a family history of cancer or some other risk factor.

Otherwise, skip all those early screenings.

As crazy as it sounds, you'll live just as long -- and you'll probably live better, too.