RogerBlack
Senior Member
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The authoritative British Medical Journal has conducted an investigation into 2,500 of the most prescribed regular medical treatments and medicines. The results have been published in the Clinical Evidence Handbook. And these outcomes, done by the regular medical world themselves, are very worrying. Medicine has been using drugs for many years, of which only 12% could have a positive effect.
My understanding is that this is not quite correct.
12% of treatments are in the "very good evidence of efficacy" category.
This is not the same as 12% of people treated.
22% were 'likely to be beneficial', and about 50% were 'unknown'.
The unknown includes medicines and treatments for which there is mixed research outcomes.
However, in many cases, trials are a problem, because people respond to different medicines differently, and what actually works is to try people on different treatments till one works for them.
There are few trials that do 'Taking these five commonly available treatments, try patients on each in sequence and see what works for them'.
It would be really nice if actual patient results could be folded into evidence, to provide the gold standard.
But generally they aren't.