Data-Free Medicine

The saddest fact about the coronavirus pandemic is certainly the deaths it has already caused and the many more deaths to come before the world gets the virus under at least as much control as, say, chickenpox. 

The second-saddest fact about the pandemic is the economic and educational havoc it has wrought. 

Perhaps the third-saddest fact is the unfortunate lack of agreement about the best strategies for living with the virus, which, at least in the U.S., is responsible for many of those deaths, and, arguably much of the havoc as well. It has roiled families as well as the presidential election, by politicizing the wearing of masks, the limits on gatherings, the openings and closings of restaurants and schools.

But yet another sad fact is that, as was said thousands of years ago, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and this too is nothing new; there is a shocking and unfortunate lack of widespread agreement about the best answers when it comes to many medical questions, even among doctors, because there is a shocking and unfortunate lack of evidence—and even respect for evidence—in the medical arena. That’s the contention of the authors of a rather prescient 2017 book, Unhealthy Politics: The Battle Over Evidence-Based Medicine,subtitled, How partisanship, polarization, and medical authority stand in the way of evidence-based medicine.