The Fallacy Of Relying On Anecdotes In Medicine [View all]

[HuckleB]

http://getbetterhealth.com/the-fallacy-of-relying-on-anecdotes-in-medicine/2012.01.06

"...

Gawler decided to embark on an alternative treatment regimen, involving coffee enemas, a vegetarian diet, and meditation. Eventually he was completely cured of his terminal metastatic cancer. He has since become Australia’s most famous cancer survivor, promoting his alternative approach to cancer treatment, has published five books, and now runs the Gawler Foundation.

At least, that is the story he believes. There is one major problem with this medical tale, however – while the original cancer was confirmed by biopsy, the subsequent lesions were not. His oncologist at the time, Dr. John Doyle, assumed the new lesions were metastatic disease and never performed a biopsy. It was highly probable – the timing and the location of the new lumps following a highly aggressive cancer. But even a diagnosis that is 95% likely will be wrong in 1 patient out of 20 – which means a working physician will have patients with the 5% diagnosis about once a week. The standard of practice today would be to do a biopsy to get tissue confirmation of the diagnosis, and rule out the less likely alternatives.

...

Gawler has believed for the last three decades that diet and meditation can cure cancer. He has spent that time writing books and promoting his personal story, convincing many others of his beliefs. While he may mean well, the far better course of action would have been to study the hypotheses that stemmed from his dramatic experience, not to conclude that he must be correct and proceed with premature conviction. That is the difference between a crank and a scientist.

In medicine well-meaning (and not-so-well-meaning, for that matter) cranks can do a lot of harm. It’s good to see mainstream doctors recognizing the risk and doing something about it."


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A nice illustration of this common fallacy.