My letter in the Times has generated a lot of interest so I thought it might help if I described the time line for reaching this frame of mind. I attach a copy of the letter and then run through a series of tweets to tell the story. I was one of the architects of the NHS breast screening programme (NHSBSP) and opened the first unit in London whilst Prof of Surgery at Kings College Hospital in 1988. At that time it seemed self evident that catching breast cancer early would save lives.

Screening revisited.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong. (H.L. Mencken, American Journalist 1880-1956) Screening fails because it is based on a flawed assumption that the kinetics of growth are linear or log linear as illustrated here.

I have been provoked to start a webinar about progress in breast cancer care following the tragic early death of Sarah Harding as covered in the Times today. That together with the flood of tweets implying that delay in diagnosis was to blame./1
thetimes.co.uk/article/sarah-… My mother died in her early 60s in uncontrolled pain from skeletal metastases. She had neglected herself and presented with advanced disease.I was a young surgeon at the time and decided to devote my career to the management of this disease. /2

The study of the growth of knowledge started in about 500BC in the Golden Age of Athens. The picture is a detail from Raphael's fresco in the Vatican. It shows Plato pointing to heaven as the source of wisdom whilst Aristotle makes the point that wisdom has to be acquired/1 Aristotle supported by Euclid, developed methodology that was the birth of scientific enquiry. It included syllogisms and "proofs" this may have had worked for algebra but failed to add to the sum of knowledge in cosmology or biology./2

"A plea also for left and right press; stop attacking the character and motivation of the people trying to help get UK out of this." @ewanbirney
Thank you Ewan, I'm glad someone at last has had the courage to make this comment. You have provoked a chain reaction response/1 I start with a disclaimer that I have no conflict of interest other than being pro Europe and having voted for Luciana Berger against the Tory sitting candidate.
I find it disgusting when armchair critics of HMG's response to this plague, question their motivation/2

I've been inspired to initiate a debate about the comparisons in outcomes between different countries in their efforts to deal with the corona virus pandemic, by this graph posted by James Barr./1 First my credentials. I founded the first cancer clinical trial's centre in the UK 1981 and directed it in various iterations for 30 years. I have no political affiliation and am driven by science. I'm an experimental clinical scientist not an epidemiologist. 2/