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Evidence-Based Medicine
in humans and animals
A phrase of the moment is 'evidence-based medicine'. Those who
genuinely strive to ascertain the evidence base for everything they do in
medicine are to be applauded. It is an extremely worthy objective.
Sadly, this 'high ground' has been hi-jacked by those who
would like to see the end of alternative medicine in general and homeopathy in
particular. The argument is that homeopathy (in particular) has no evidence
base. This is, of course, complete nonsense. It is true that there is not the
huge volume of published work that characterises conventional medicine and it is
also true that research and publication in homeopathy can never attract the
multi-billion rewards that await those who work with drugs. Research in natural
medicine is necessarily altruistic and therefore difficult to fund.
There are a few of the web references that show that there is
indeed an evidence base for homeopathy:
http://www.trusthomeopathy.org/case/res_toc.html - an introduction to the
science of homeopathy.
http://www.alternativevet.org/research.htm - some of the clinical
research conducted by AVMC.
outcome analysis - records
of client feedback.
It would appear that conventional medicine is struggling to
ascertain its own evidence base. The BMJ's Clinical Evidence website recently
stated that only 15% of the 2,404 orthodox (conventional) medical
treatments reviewed were effective and 47% were of unknown effectiveness.
www.clinicalevidence.com. Worthy and unbiased efforts are being made to
improve the evidence base of conventional medical interventions.
Yes, we want evidence-based medicine in an ideal world. Let us
stop wasting time and energy in a fruitless war of words and let us examine,
properly and objectively, what we do on a daily basis, for our patients. The
patient's needs, whether human or animal, should be paramount in all medical
endeavour.
True science first observes, later draws conclusions or
theories.In ethical medicine, any methodology that
claims that it may be able to help patients should be thoroughly
investigated, not vilified out of hand.
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In the
interests of transparency, we have also uploaded the results of ongoing case outcome monitoring, for
interest. Click the link: Outcome Study.
N.B.: This study
includes only cats, dogs and horses. |
Let us have science, not doctrine. Let us have patient
welfare, not vested interest.
Please observe first and then try to make sense of the
observations.
See also: Animal
Experiments - Vivisection -
Side-Effects -
Iatrogenic Disease
Other comment:
http://chris-day.blogware.com (has
word-search facility)
Copyright © AVMC -
October 2007
The AVMC is
unable to support animal experimentation (vivisection) under its many
euphemisms:
animal procedures - laboratory animal procedures - animal tests - animal testing
- animal experiments - laboratory animal experiments - laboratory animal
experimentation
We are also unable to support much of the biotechnology of today, in the shape
of: GM - GMO - genetic modification - xenotransplants - xenotransplantation - cloning - hybridisation
- human-animal hybrids
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