This paper was published on 03 Nov, 2010, by the British Medical Journal, as a rapid response to a News (27 Sept, 2010) on the influence of hormones on the incidence of breast cancer
Although evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been introduced 15-20 years ago as a new paradigm in order to root medical practice more deeply into scientific rationality, poor understanding of its principles often leads to a regrettable mistake: in the quest for “the best available evidence”, emphasis should be on “available” and not on “the best”.
Having missed this crucial point, most health professionals stand now their grounds in a naïve, but damaging contempt for every data which does not complies with the so-called “gold-standard” of prospective randomised controlled trials (RCTs).
However:
In 1989, Prozac, became available in French pharmacies. The "happy pill" was first seen as a sort of cultural phenomenon before being criticized. Twenty years after, has Prozac proved to be efficient or is it just another drug?
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Evidence-based medicine (EBM)
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