General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSurprise! We don’t know if half our medical treatments work
Clinical Evidence, a project of the British Medical Journal, recently combed through the 3,000 medical treatments that have been studied in controlled, randomized studies. They found, for half of those, we have no idea how well they work (h/t Austin Frakt):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/24/surprise-we-dont-know-if-half-our-medical-treatments-work/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Looks like the odds are no better than a coin toss half the time.
pediatricmedic
(397 posts)Half the treatments we did when I started are no longer used due to research and "evidence based practice". A lot of them were "it seemed to work before, so let's try it again" type of treatments.
Whisp
(24,096 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)and that we don't know.
But if you think of it from a profit center viewpoint, the answer is clear...these treatments make money sometimes incredible amounts of money.
Medicine is sadly a business more so than a calling.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... half of all physicians have adopted that practice is something north of 13 years, this is not surprising.
What it really suggests though, is that the current "state of the art" is still "dark ages".