COLONOSCOPIES: Procedure is done with an endoscope, a reusable optical instrument that can be cleaned but not sterilized

not sterilized. In 2018 a study evaluated rates of infection after colonoscopy & upper GI exams done in ambulatory surgery centers across US. They discovered the rates of infection were “far higher than previously believed & varied widely from one surgery center to another.” pic.twitter.com/cx85OUhP07

— Wejolyn 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 (@Wejolyn) October 30, 2022

Besides, colonoscopies confer no real benefit.  They're unnecessary.  

Bill Sardi writes

I frequently receive inquiries about colonoscopies. People want to know whether they are worthwhile. Certainly colonoscopy, the passage of a fiber optic tube into your intestinal tract to examine for pre-cancerous growths (called polyps) or to directly detect observable tumors in the colon or rectum, is a hard sell. Not only is colonoscopy an ordeal for the patient, a weak economy is forcing more patients to forego this diagnostic procedure as it does cost a few hundred dollars out of pocket. So is the recent news that colonoscopy cuts the death risk for colon cancer in half enough to get 50-plus-year-olds to part with their money and endure this uncomfortable procedure?

The bigger problem is not affordability or discomfort during the procedure, the problem is that, regardless of what you are told by doctors or what you read in news reports, colonoscopy offers implausible benefits.

First, patients are supposed to buy into the idea that detection and removal of intestinal polyps is life saving. But colonoscopy does nothing to prevent polyps from recurring. One study reported more than 40% of the time a surgically removed polyp does in fact return.

Second, do polyps equate with cancer? Colon cancer may emanate from flat growths that simply cannot be detected during colonoscopy. Even the best trained physician may not be able to detect the smallest polyps which is the entire reason for the test, to detect precancerous growth at their earliest stage of development. Even then, the best-trained physician can miss small tumors in the colon. The miss rate for the smallest growths (less than 5 millimeters in size) is around 25%. In one study of 2079 patients who underwent colonoscopy, colon cancer was detected in 13 patients, 7 (58%) who undergone prior colonoscopy and whose cancers were missed or were incompletely removed