“When the Evidence-Base Doesn’t Agree”

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Christopher Gill, a Global Health specialist at Boston University, reports on his comparison of the strength of the evidence from meta-analyses and Cochrane meta-analyses. “The non-Cochrane reviews, on average, tended to suggest that the interventions they were testing were more potent, more likely to cure the condition or avert some medical complication than the Cochrane reviews suggested.”

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4 COMMENTS

  1. “If we view the meta-analysis as the ‘gold standard’ in our current era of ‘evidence-based medicine,’ how is the average doctor or policymaker or even patient to react when two gold standards contradict each other? Caveat emptor.”

    Buyer beware is true, but this also is evidence that “evidence based medicine” is not actually “evidence based medicine,” but instead basically just pharmaceutical industry marketing fraud. Thus should theoretically function as a reminder to the doctors, the importance of remembering medicine is still just an art, not a science. And it should function as a warning to all patients that trusting in today’s medical industry is unwise.

    “All the right friends, in all the right places, oh yeah, we’re going down.”

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      • Evidence based medicine is a technical term, somewhere between the latest “fad” and a revolution in the archaïc form of traditional medical practice, closer to hear-say transmitted, generation by generation of young god like figures by authoritarian toubibs. Science could be a very precious way to assess it’s actual merit, but big Pharma doesn’t appreciate anyone questioning it’s propaganda.

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  2. In a cense, you are right Someone else. But the Cochrane collaboration tried to bring science to medicine. And one of it’s founders and most vocal and respected critical thinkers just got chased out. It is a terrible tragedy. Medical Science, at it’s most rigorous level was fighting pharmaceutical corruption. The link up on top is good and very informative. Why downplay it ?

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