This is an important article. It points out that the medical literature is fraught with mis-information, errors, and even lies. Even more disconcerting, most doctors base their decisions on this literature.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269
Great article! Thanks.
Exactly how I feel but without the fine points of a statistician. Some days I am really concerned that we are all becoming snake-oil salesmen. Even our careers are built on the faulty notion that rapid intervention saves lives. It sure does, but no where near the magnitude that people believe it does.
I even heard on the news tonight that the CDC announced that 1 in 3 people in the US will have type 2 diabetes if current trends persist. Does anyone have a problem believing that? Doesn’t even sound reasonable. Currently they say its 1 in 10. Has that been your experience getting thousands of unnecessary blood tests on people? Even in a non-fasting state, we don’t see 10% with elevated blood sugars.
He fears he won’t in the end have done much to improve anyone’s health. “There may not be fierce objections to what I’m saying,” he explains. “But it’s difficult to change the way that everyday doctors, patients, and healthy people think and behave.”
At the end of the day, that is my concern too. If we recognize that our practice is built on, at minimum, exaggerations if benefit, how do we change any of this. It seems to big. But there must be a way.
-a physician friend