Kat Arney: the importance of evidence based medicine

Kat Arney explains why an evidence based approach to medicine is important and why there really isn't a conspiracy to keep miracle cures for cancer or AIDS a secret from the public. Just one of many responses to the question "why is science important?" at www.whyscience.co.uk

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• cancer
• research
• alternative
• medicine
• evidence
• kat
• arney

[HeliosStation]

More people need to realize the importance of evidence-based results as opposed to story-based.

[badger5079]

@WBAMB83392

Evidence medicine is about getting proof that a medication has a significant benefit over an alternative medicine or a placebo. One might presume that a lipid-lowering statin obviously works because the fasting cholesterol comes down in an individual patient but EBM allows us to get some data on wider populations who take the medication. It will allow us to know if the medication has a beneficial effect on the outcome measure that is more important ...

[texasbariatric]

Evidence based medicine is putting together evidence from study, from research, from individual patient information and professional knowledge from qualified individuals. Thanks for posting this video.

[ianww8]

@badgrer5079 again, your comment demonstrates your ignorance of the scientific method! My mother died of this terrble disease - but I wouldnt have wanted her to have been a 'guinie pig' for a 'new treatment' - which is what youre suggesting we should do! 'Try anything in case it works' - come on - thats neither decent nor affordable! We should only use tried and tested treatments that conform to the scientific method, and if the cure is found after I've (probably) died of it, then that's life!

[ianww8]

@edmills1023 and your comment clearly demonstrates your ignorance of the scientific method! Watch it again - and hopefully you'll see that what she says is right!

My mother died of this terrble disease - and I am devastated by that four years on - but I wouldnt have wanted her to have been a 'guinie pig' for a 'new treatment' - which is what you seem to be suggesting we should do! We should only use tried and tested treatments that conform to the scientific method.

[badger5079]

If it is your mother whose life is saved, then you might care, but there is no way of knowing who will be saved.

[badger5079]

... than the cholesterol level - the mortality over a fixed period. The number of patients needed to treat may be in the hundreds before one patient has a benefit but the evidence shows that 1 in 200 patients will survive over a fixed period that would not otherwise have survived and this can be tightly linked to the presence or absence of the medication in question, then that is a useful medication for that one person in 200.

[edmills1023]

this is ridiculous and displays no understanding of the concept of measurement. Its about understanding the magnitude of benefit. And yes, you do need a trial for almost everything.

[WBAMB83392]

Evidence-based medicine is a great name, but a poor practice. If a drug obviously works, you don't need a big study. Big studies are for drugs that dont obviously work. It is a way to prove that a new expensive patented treatment is 3% better than a sugar pill. All but 3% of that result is from the placebo effect, so evidence based medicine means buying 100 doses of the drug for every 3 times it actually works. What the evidence actually shows is that most modern medicine is worthless.