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After reading this article I find only one problem with it, and that is the title. The problem the authors have so perfectly characterized has nothing to do wi
by chicob 5y ago
After reading this article I find only one problem with it, and that is the title.
The problem the authors have so perfectly characterized has nothing to do with the emphasis on evidence that medicine requires, but on the distortion imposed on the system by large pharmaceutical companies.
The reality of the obstacles standing in the way of rigorous testing for drug or therapy effectiveness does not make evidence-based medicine an illusion.
In fact, the authors actually make a strong argument in favor of evidence-based medicine, by stating the need to acknowledge these biases. And that the reason for all these biases is greed.
- pmoriarty 5y agoThe article shows how what passes for evidence based medicine is an illusion. The "evidence" is biased and corrupted by corporations, as are many of the people who evaluate it, set the standards, and make decisions.
- xmprt 5y agoI think you're misunderstanding the title. It's not that evidence based medicine has problems. It's that there are problems with how evidence based medicine is currently practiced which gives it the appearance of evidence based medicine while actually not being anything close, that is, an illusion.
- chicob 5y agoWell, yes. My point was simply that the title misrepresents the article, because it is ambiguous. "The illusion of evidence based medicine" can be interpreted as a statement of how the aim of evidence based medicine is illusory. The short introductory paragraph, "Evidence based medicine has been corrupted by corporate interests [etc]" furthers this idea, having a somewhat definite tone, as if this corruption were fatal to any proper scientific inquiry. The rest of the article dissipates this confusion rather quickly. Stepping back a little, how would one react to a title such as "The illusion of medicine", making the same general argument?
- ouid 5y agoStop calling it greed. It's corruption and regulatory capture. Both of these, unlike greed, are problems that can be solved.
- verisimi 5y ago> It's corruption and regulatory capture. Absolutely! > Both of these, unlike greed, are problems that can be solved. Hmm... I don't see how. Pharmaceutical companies (and all other corporations, for that matter) pay the lobbyists to write the legislation that is then duly waved through. This is to say the governance structure itself is captured. In fact, I think it always was captured, but only that we have laboured erroneously under the idea that it was there to help us. And creating that illusion is the job of education and corporate media. Until we are disabused of the idea that government is anything other than a parasitical, wealth extraction process, that no one has the right to forcibly take another's money (tax) and to do so means to be subjugated to a type of slavery, that legislation has very little to do with morality, that we are given our opinions first at school with 18 years or so of indoctrination which is then topped up via screens and newspapers - until we recognise that we are sovereign beings that will stand up for what is right and refuse what is wrong, we're not going to change much.
- chicob 5y agoWhy not? Greed is not just some intangible human feeling. It can take the form of corruption and regulatory capture whose motivation, in the case of large pharmaceutical companies, is profit.
- lmm 5y agoGreed is human nature. Eliminating or at least minimising corruption is doable; eliminating greed is not, unless you're willing to start engineering humans.