A new report from the Food and Drug Administration concludes that some medical tests are doing more harm than good.

A number of unreliable tests are reporting false positives with disastrous results. Many women have had their ovaries unnecessarily removed as a result of a flawed test for ovarian cancer. Tests have reported nonexistent fetal abnormalities that have led other women to have abortions. An unproven test that claims to identify a link between a certain genetic variant and heart disease has likely led to many people being prescribed drugs to lower cholesterol.

"The problems are more prevalent than people want to recognize," Dr. Jeffrey E. Shuren, the director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the FDA, told the New York Times. "Doctors and patients rely on these tests to make well-informed health care decisions. If they get inaccurate results, they can make the wrong decisions, and people get hurt as a result."