UK Doctors urge Evidence Based Medicine

I was reading in the BBC about doctors advising that funding priority should be given to evidence based medicine and not alternative medicine.

"Some of Britain's leading doctors have urged NHS trusts to stop using complementary therapies and to pay only for medicine "based on solid evidence".

One doctor told the Times the NHS was funding "bogus" therapies when patients struggled to get drugs like Herceptin.

The group raised concerns that the NHS is funding "unproven or disproved treatments", like homeopathy.

The doctors say while "medical practice must remain open to new discoveries", it would "be highly irresponsible to embrace any medicine as though it were a matter of principle".

The public and the NHS are best served by using the available funds for treatments that are based on solid evidence.

The wholesale integration of complementary medicine, simply because it's alternative, and people may want it, and feel satisfied with it, is not a good reason for integration.

The NHS should not be spending money where the evidence base is much weaker than it is for conventional treatments," he told BBC Breakfast.

... a business plan for the refurbishment of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital - which cost £20m to set up - did not put any emphasis on evidence.

Complementary therapies also include reflexology, aromatherapy and a range of 'hands on healing' techniques such as reiki and shiatsu."

Source: BBC News