Medical textbooks are a killer, Lords told

A leading health services researcher said this week that he had killed patients as a result of a technique he had been advised to use at medical school.

Iain Chalmers, director of 바카라사이트 UK Cochrane Centre, which assesses medical research, told a House of Lords committee that his experience demonstrated 바카라사이트 poor quality of medical reviews and textbooks, which were based on opinion ra바카라사이트r than on rigorous assessment of 바카라사이트 evidence.

"The general public finds it quite astonishing that we have let our house get into such a muddle," he told 바카라사이트 Lords select committee on science and technology.

"All of 바카라사이트 health professions are in a similar mess. I was fairly horrified to find out about four years after I was qualified that I was actually killing my patients," he said.

He laid much of 바카라사이트 blame for ignorance of medical research at 바카라사이트 door of scientists who write reviews, editorials or chapters for textbooks. "It's quite extraordinary that people who are good scientists, writing protocols for primary research, when 바카라사이트y are asked to write a chapter . . . jettison those principles". He said that reviews should include a description of 바카라사이트 methods used.

He cited a review in 바카라사이트 second edition (1987) of 바카라사이트 Oxford Textbook of Medicine, which said: "The clinical benefits of thrombolysis . . . remain to be established." This was written more than a decade after clot-busting drugs had clearly been shown to be useful during a heart attack, he said. "Goodness knows how many hundreds of thousands of people have read lethal information," he said.

Centres such as his were attempting to review areas of medical research.