The New York Times: Why Doctors Still Offer Treatments That May Not Help

The New York Times: Why Doctors Still Offer Treatments That May Not Help by Austin Frakt

Even when we learn something doesn’t make us better, it’s hard to get the system to stop doing it. It takes years or even decades to reverse medical convention. Some practitioners cling to weak evidence of effectiveness even when strong evidence of lack of effectiveness exists.

This is not unique to clinical medicine. It exists in health policy, too. Much of what we do lacks evidence; and even when evidence mounts that a policy is ineffective, our political system often caters to invested stakeholders who benefit from it.

An honest assessment of the state of science behind clinical practice and health policy is humbling. Though many things we do and pay for are effective, there is a lot we don’t know. That’s inevitable. What isn’t inevitable — and where the real problems lie — is assuming, without evidence, that something works.

 

Cymbalta!

It made my Fibromyalgia pain and cognition worsen and I have read it does it to others. Psychiatrists prescribe it for "Fibromyalgia patients" and many people with depression w/ pain were misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

 

I think it took more than a decade after the discovery of h. pylori and its role in peptic ulcers was recognized (in 1982) for there to be an official recommendation to treat the bacteria (and the disease) with antibiotics. Fortunately, they got around to it before Marshall and Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery.