We need to take men's health seriously.

A national men’s screening programme has been rejected

A proposal to roll out a mass screening programme for prostate cancer has been rejected by a health committee.

Their reasoning is that it will do “more harm than good”.

And their argument has some merit - the test can be unreliable, and so some may end up getting over-treated for something they don’t have, giving them avoidable after-symptoms as a result.

For example, is said that men could suffer from “incontinence and erectile dysfunction” when they didn’t need treatment in the first place.

The rejection of the screening programme is only a recommendation from health experts, so there is still a chance that the government could move forward with plans to roll it out.

But clearly, this isn't a straightforward or clean issue, and there are obvious arguments for the science on both sides.

So I want to focus less on this specific issue and more on the wider perception and treatment of men’s health.