The medical profession has a long record of disasters caused by treating people with untested drugs, devices and surgeries. And it continues today to offer treatments before they're proven safe and effective.
Although many untested remedies ultimately have proved to be lifesaving medical breakthroughs, patients should -- at a minimum -- know if untested drugs, surgeries or devices are being used on them.
The first question to ask, according to Dr. Richard Greene of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research: What is the evidence that shows I would benefit from taking the drug you are prescribing or undergoing the surgery you are recommending?
Greene and Dr. Robert Temple of the Food and Drug Administration have several other questions to ask your doctor:
Is the evidence based on the randomized clinical trial, which is the most scientific way of proving safety and effectiveness?
If a drug or medical device is not approved, why hasn't it been approved?
If the drug or device is being used off-label -- that is, used in a way that it hasn't been approved for -- is this a recommended off-label use based on a wide range of scientific evidence?
If the surgical procedure is new, how many people has it been used on and what are the success rates and complications? If it is an older procedure, what is the evidence that shows this procedure is necessary?
What are the known risks vs. the benefits?
If the off-label drug is used in combination with another drug, what is known about interactions between the two?
"The public needs to learn that one person's spectacular anecdote may not be true," Temple says.
"Somehow, people simply have to understand that those kinds of observations are often wrong and if you don't look scientifically, you don't find the truth." -- Tim Friend
Copyright 1996, USA TODAY. Reprinted with permission.
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
Spearheaded by burgeoning scientific and clinical research literature, psychedelics have reached a level of media coverage and popular interest that has not been seen for over half a century. By “psychedelics,” we are referring to the unique class of substances that includes psilocybin (the active compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”), LSD, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, and mescaline – each of which occurs in the natural world (except for LSD, which is a semi-synthetic compound).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
