Evidence based medicine: Falsifying a medical ideology

Vincent J. Curtis

13 Apr 22

RE: A better understanding of evidence based medicine.  Op-ed by Mark Levine, C.M., MD, professor in the department of oncology at McMaster University, and a retired medical oncologist.  The Hamilton Spectator 11 Apr 22.

Dr. Mark Levine congratulated himself for his creating of a medical ideology called “evidence based medicine.”  He explained that ‘EBM’ refers to using the best evidence available in making decisions about the care of individual patients.  He contrasted this to the old practice of medical decision making being based on a physician’s opinion and experience.  Why these two things aren’t the same went unexplained.  One hopes that a physician’s opinion is based upon the best evidence available and his experience.

Erecting EBM into an ideology raises three problems.  First, who gets to decide what the best evidence is? Second, what happens if the best evidence turns out to be politically inspired non-sense? Third, how do you handle challenges to the decision of what the best available is?

We saw in the political response to the pandemic all three of these worst cases come to pass.  The uselessness, harmfulness, and sheer irrationality of a societal lockdown was documented and published by Dr. Scott Atlas, MD, in April, 2020, but this was ignored.  There never was any science behind mask mandates, and yet it is still the go-to recommendation of many of influence, as it is even now ridiculed.  But the political power of the doctors overrides and ignores the best evidence.  They certain don’t confront opposition based on science and rationality because they don’t have to.

The vaccine mandate proved less than the best medicine for most people under sixty, and a failure as a vaccine.  What’s best for the patient got ignored in the cry for responsibility for others.  Even now, a fourth booster shot is officially recommended; never mind the vaccine was developed for the alpha variant and we’re now into the BA2 variant.  Therapeutics were ignored because the vaccine was supposed to be the solution.

Challenges to the official responses were viciously suppressed, and not just on social media.  In fact, support for the official narrative was viciously supported by those whose funding came from those controlling the official narrative.

Ideologies never work because their first principle doesn’t always hold.

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