Why Doctors Hate Science

theodp writes "A 2004 study found some 10 million women lacking a cervix were still getting Pap tests. Only problem is, a Pap test screens for cervical cancer — no cervix, no cancer. With this tale, Newsweek's Sharon Begley makes her case for comparative-effectiveness research (CER), which is receiving $1 billion under the stimulus bill for studies to determine which treatments, including drugs, are more medically sound and cost-effective than others for a given ailment. Physicians, Begley says, must stop treatments that are rooted more in local medical culture than in medical science, embrace practices that have been shown scientifically to be superior to others, and ignore critics who paint CER as government control of doctors' decision-making."

Comments

YANAD, hopefully

[Mathinker]

Most of your post makes good sense (although simplistic, I'd guess) until

Cortisone shots don't fix anything, they just relieves the pain and lubricates the joints while your body heals itself.

Try to check if you actually know something before opening mouth. Or did you think that the Slashdot crowd wouldn't understand the word "inflammation" and went for the car analogy: "lubrication"?

You are correct that corticosteroids do not directly aid the healing of the damage, but they are not helping because of their lubricating effect. They modulate the immune response, which is how they relieve the pain and inflammation. The "truth" here is probably more complicated than what we know about it. (Yes, I realize the linked research deals with muscles and not bone or connective tissue, it's just illustrative.)