Scientific American: Bash Homeopathy and Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More

[Orrex]

30. Thanks. Incidentally, I should add...

I have absolutely no tolerance for licensed medical practitioners who engage in practices like those I've attributed to alt-med. For instance, prescribing medications for off-label uses when there's no evidence that such uses will be helpful.

It's arguably even worse when medical practitioners do so, because their advice carries the weight of licensed authority.

But I'm not referring to medical advice given in good faith that later turns out to be incorrect; doctors weren't generally prescribing Vioxx while aware of its dangerous side effects, for example. Rather, I mean medical advice given in the absence of (or in defiance of) empirical evidence.

Mammograms are a good (bad) example of this, in that it appears that they may be over-prescribed when not needed. C-Section births and (possibly) excessive episiotomies might also fall in that category. But it's not clear that physicians are recommending these procedures in willful defiance of medical understanding; they may simply be incorrect.