Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

How the COVID pandemic showed that evidence-based medicine is — at present — an illusion

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Government largely bought into propaganda marketed as science:

There is a big flaw in the logic of evidence-based medicine as the basis for the practice of medicine as we know it, a practice based on science; one that determines care down to the level of the individual patient. This flaw is nestled in the heart and soul of evidence-based medicine, which (as we have seen over the last two years) is not free of politics. It is naive to think that data and the process of licensure of new drugs is free from bias and conflicts of interest. In fact, this couldn’t be any farther from the truth. The COVID-19 crisis of 2020 to 2022 has exposed for all to see how evidence based medicine has been corrupted by the governments, hospitalists, academia, big pharma, tech and social media. They have leveraged the processes and rationale of evidence-based medicine to corrupt the entire medical enterprise.

Evidence based medicine depends on data. For the most part, the data gathering and analysis process is conducted by and for the pharmaceutical industry, then reported by senior academics. The problem, as laid out in an editorial in the British Medical Journal is as follows:

“The release into the public domain of previously confidential pharmaceutical industry documents has given the medical community valuable insight into the degree to which industry sponsored clinical trials are misrepresented. Until this problem is corrected, evidence based medicine will remain an illusion.”

Robert W. Malone, “The illusion of Evidence-based Medicine” at Substack (March 28, 2022)

Right, and hardly the only illusion. Dr. Malone proposes reforms but thorough enquiries would be needed to make the case for reform obvious — and we can expect massive stonewalling in the name of “science.”

Just for example, the cult of the mask is starting to be probed: “none of four RCTs performed in broader community settings found a significant difference between masking and remaining bare-faced. For influenza-like illnesses, the pooled data from five other RCTs as well showed a non-significant protective effect of mask wearing for avoiding either primary or secondary infection. These results appear substantial and would seem of some relevance to the current pandemic. But there is more.” Stay tuned.

You may also wish to read: At BMJ: Evidence based medicine running into many of the same problems as felled earlier reform movements. Op-ed: “Ironically, industry sponsored KOLs [key opinion leaders] appear to enjoy many of the advantages of academic freedom, supported as they are by their universities, the industry, and journal editors for expressing their views, even when those views are incongruent with the real evidence. While universities fail to correct misrepresentations of the science from such collaborations, critics of industry face rejections from journals, legal threats, and the potential destruction of their careers.”

Comments
TLH, sobering. I think for the US the rate is down by about 1/2 (global figures are roughly a million per week), but the Nuremberg Code indicts us all. our civilisation is in trouble. KFkairosfocus
March 30, 2022
March
03
Mar
30
30
2022
12:36 AM
12
12
36
AM
PDT
Please, could we please knock off this nonsense about Evidence Based Medical Science and Medical Ethics? For all practical purposes, such thing simply dont exist in our world. As any half wit should know, for over 50 years, the Medical Establishment (as well as the Media, Academic, and Legal Establishments) has been 1 ) Denying basic Biology, and/or 2) Denying the most essential elements of Ethics and Law As a result of the corruption of our leaders, there have been over 60 million premeditated murders in the US, the vast majority performed by physicians with the full support of those leaders. The Evidence Based Basic Biology, as stated by virtually all embryologists, is simple. "A human being's life (like the life of a giraffe, a horsie or a hippo) begins when the sperm fuses with the ovum to form a new complex with distinctive DNA that proceeds to grow and thrive in blah blah blah" AKA Life begins at fertilization. Joining the institutions in denying this obvious science. have been our leaders, including Presidents Biden and Obama, (although there have been some exceptions, most notably former President Trump.) And when Presidents Biden and Obama, our top judges, what do our top doctors, our media know it alls, and our great colleges do? Do they laugh at them and call them fools? No way. They applaud. So much for Science Then we have the matter of Ethics and Law . The most basic ethical principle is that the willful killing of an innocent person is never permitted. Yet every day 3000 such murders happen., and the murderers are our doctors., who are trained to murder at our leading Medical Schools. Our most basic legal principle is that all persons receive the equal protection of the laws. For that reason a law that punishes the murder of a white person must provide for the same punishment for the murder of a black person. The same male and female, old person or young person, rich person or poor person, a Christian a Moslem or Atheist person, a peer reviewed Scientist, or some hick. But noyt born persons and unborn person. One class of persons, unborn babies, they get no equal protection. None whatsoever. You can murder the,m on a whim. All thanks to our best and our brightest. So much for our great Constitution, and its 14th Ammendment that guarnateees equal protection for all persons, that was enacted after the Civil War. One wonders, that when Lee offered his sword to Grant at Appomatox, whether he should have insisted that Grant keep it. Then at least the Yankees would have gotten something out of their victory.TAMMIE LEE HAYNES
March 29, 2022
March
03
Mar
29
29
2022
05:42 PM
5
05
42
PM
PDT
There is nothing wrong in principle with evidence-based medicine but there is an issue about ensuring that any evidence under consideration meets the highest possible standards.Seversky
March 29, 2022
March
03
Mar
29
29
2022
01:52 PM
1
01
52
PM
PDT
For sure, Polistra at 1, and the faux elements of the COVID crisis are providing just such an opportunity for thoughtful lay people.News
March 29, 2022
March
03
Mar
29
29
2022
08:26 AM
8
08
26
AM
PDT
The corrupting influence of Big Pharma has been known for a long time inside the medical community. Articles on the subject have appeared in journals for decades. Walker Percy depicted Satan as a pharma salesman in his 1971 dystopia 'Love in the Ruins', which is the EXACT dystopia for our times. This connection deserves to be better known *outside* the medical community.polistra
March 29, 2022
March
03
Mar
29
29
2022
06:54 AM
6
06
54
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply