Despite an emerging consensus that tests for prostate cancer often do more harm than good, federal officials are backing off a proposed plan to penalize doctors who order such tests for patients.

Even medical groups that agree that far too many men have been subjected to cancer screenings said that the proposed rule was too heavy-handed, and did not take into consideration the specifics of each circumstance.

As a result, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was flooded with complaints about the proposed rule from doctors, who argued that if put in place, the rule would mean that they would be penalized for running tests on patients who are generally agreed to be better candidates for screenings, due to family history or an enlarged prostate.