Convincing the Public to Accept New Medical Guidelines

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/convincing-the-public-to-accept-new-medical-guidelines-11422/

When it comes to new treatment guidelines for breast cancer, back pain and other maladies, it’s the narrative presentation that matters.

They call it “vitamin I.” Among runners of ultra-long-distance races, ibuprofen use is so common that when scientist David Nieman tried to study the drug’s use at the Western States Endurance Run in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains he could hardly find participants willing to run the grueling 100-mile race without it.

Nieman, director of the Human Performance Lab at Appalachian State University, eventually did recruit the subjects he needed for the study, comparing pain and inflammation in runners who took ibuprofen during the race with those who didn’t, and the results were unequivocal. Ibuprofen failed to reduce muscle pain or soreness, and blood tests revealed that ibuprofen takers actually experienced greater levels of inflammation than those who eschewed the drug. “There is absolutely no reason for runners to be using ibuprofen,” Nieman says.

The following year, Nieman returned to the Western States race and presented his findings to runners. Afterward, he asked whether his study results would change their habits. The answer was a resounding no. “They really, really think it’s helping,” Nieman says. “Even in the face of data showing that it doesn’t help, they still use it.”

Nieman’s tale is no anomaly. A surprising number of medical practices have never been rigorously tested to find out if they really work. Even where evidence points to the most effective treatment for a particular condition, the information is not always put into practice. “The First National Report Card on Quality of Health Care in America,” published by the Rand Corporation in 2006, found that, overall, Americans received only about half of the care recommended by national guidelines.


Very interesting read -- more at the link --

[ixion]

1. Here's the thing: The Health 'care' industry is about profits

and as such, they cannot be trusted.

[Donnachaidh]

3. no argument from me on that fact. n/t

[HuckleB]

4. Life is not so simple.

http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2010/05/dont_believe_it.php

[HuckleB]

2. Good article. This blog piece addresses the article and its concerns, with some additions.

Knowledge versus certainty in skepticism, medicine, and science
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/05/knowledge_versus_certainty_in_skepticism.php