Hello, I'm From the Government and I'm Here to Give You a Colonoscopy

Recently the Australian Government has developed a keen - even morbid - interest in the contents of my bowels. This week I received a letter inviting me to “take part in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (the Program).” With it, I received a free test kit which I can use in the privacy of my own lavatory to collect a sample of the aforementioned bowel contents to see if I might have bowel cancer. According to the letter (signed by Professor Jim Bishop AO, MD MMed MBBS FRACP FRCPA APSOABN*, probably using bitmap graphics) “A positive result does not mean that you have bowel cancer”. In fact, “Most people with a positive test result” (i.e. blood in their poos) “do not have bowel cancer.”

That last statement suggests to me that the “Faecal Occult Blood Test (FOBT)” is pretty much a waste of time as a screening test for bowel cancer. So I won’t be doing this:

2. Place the collection sheet, printed side up, on the surface of the water in the toilet bowl...

3. Pass the bowel movement onto the sheet...

4. Using the sampling stick, insert the tip into the bowel movement [turd] and drag (swipe) along the length of the bowel movement [turd] three times, see diagram (right).

And I very definitely won’t be doing this:

7. Place the sampling tube in one of the large screw top transport tubes and then put into the plastic ziplock bag.

8. Put the plastic ziplock bag containing the sample into the blue reply paid envelope, and then store it in the coolest part of your residence. [and here’s the sticking point] The fridge provides the most stable conditions for storing your sample...

It’s easy to imagine the response I’d get from housemates if I told them that the mysterious blue envelope in the fridge contained a sample of faecal matter collected at the behest of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (the Program). It’s pretty much the same way that I’d react to such news.

The finest part of the whole package is the Privacy Note on the back of the badly designed form you’re supposed to send back with your poos. It’s badly designed because, although the covering letter from Professor Jim Bishop AO etc gives you the choice of opting out of “the Program”, that option doesn’t come until question 11 and the whole package gives the impression that it’s very much a case of “no poos, no form wanted”. The trouble is, when a government agency is asking you to send it samples of your number twos, the whole idea of a Privacy Note is completely moot.

(* And Possibly Several Other Acronyms By Now)