“More than half of all medical treatments, and perhaps as many as 85 percent, have never been validated by clinical trials.” Michael L. Millenson, AB: Demanding Medical Evidence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Issue 2, September 1998.

“Only 10-20% of all procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious by controlled trial.” Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress. Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of Medical Technologies. Washington DC : Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress; 1978.

“The 50 percent figure comes from none other than the Institute of Medicine. Not exactly a bunch of pro-alternative medicine nutjobs.”

And she goes on.

“Here’s a short list right off the top of my head of widespread medical practices that have only recently been shown to be ineffective or harmful for at least some patients on whom they were commonly used: cadiac stents vs medical management; neurontin for biopolar disorder; vena cava filter in patients on low molecular-weight heparin; implantable defibrilators; lung
reduction surgery for emphysema; pulmonary artery catheters, carotid endarterectomy for most patients. There are many many more.”

“Here’s an off the top of the head list of current, common medical practices that have poor, contradictory, or no evidence; spinal fusion for low back pain; minimally invasive hip replacement surgery; orthognathic surgery for TMJ; PET scanning for putative Alzheimer’s; TpA for stroke; statins for primary prevention; PSA testing for prostate cancer; CT scan screening for lung cancer; stents for the prevention of stroke. I could go on and on.”

“There is widespread antipathy towards evidence within the medical community, I think at least in part because it is very hard for physicians to admit they are practicing medicine on the basis of hunches, tradition, and all the other non-science-based reasons that doctors do what
they do. The problem is, most doctors are not trained to tell the difference between valid evidence and garbage, much less valid evidence and somewhat less reliable evidence — the difference, for instance, between a randomized controlled clinical trial and an observational trial. Many think observation is just as good.”

Out of all the sciences, it is the medical profession that sports the highest percentage of belief in supernaturalism (i.e., god). It’s no wonder there’s so much bullshit being passed off as “good, solid medical practice.” And for you to not go after these things as passionately as you do CAM, is frankly a big disappointment. I love when you call bullshit on the CAMers. Now, step up and learn to call BS even when it hits close to home.

I once blogged about an article attempting to address the very question in the title of this post, and I’ve also discussed in depth how messy the process of evidence-based medicine can be and why that provides an opening for……

That said, there’s a great deal of fudging of statistics in what we consider evidence-based medicine…so while I’m absolutely for evidence-based medicine (as opposed to the recommendations of gray-skinned health food store employees)…exactly how evidence-based is some (or even much) of this evidence-based medicine?

The problem is, it probably takes some of the finer stats hounds/epidemiologists to properly deconstruct the math behind the studies, leaving the rest of us to simply hope that what we consider “evidence-based” medicine actually is.

Again, no fan of woo here…but I think there’s a tendency in opposiing woo to deify the other side. Skepticism all around is called for: Science, as opposed to “science.”

Flash forward to today and all the progress made in the interum…

These assertions you highlight are just wreckless and irresponsible. There’s just too little old fashioned shame where these truthers are concerned. Corny perhaps; but true most likely.