Evaluating medical treatments : Evidence, shmevidence

/21556928

  • Evaluating medical treatments: Evidence, shmevidence | The Economist
    http://www.economist.com/node/21556928

    Mr Obama’s health law stipulates that insurers must cover the treatments the task-force recommends.

    Nevertheless, the power of both bodies is purposely dulled. A negative recommendation from the task-force does not mean that coverage will stop. PCORI is explicitly barred from studying cost-effectiveness. The health secretary may not use PCORI’s findings to deny coverage under Medicare, the federal health programme for the old. When the institute announced its agenda in May, it was vague in the extreme.

    Even neutered bodies, however, can provoke outrage. The task-force unleashed a torrent of fury in 2009, when it recommended against mammograms for women in their 40s. Last month the task force advised against routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests to screen for prostate cancer. The panel explained that for every life that the tests save, the treatment inspired by those tests would cause one man to develop a serious blood clot, two to have heart attacks and at least 30 to become impotent or incontinent. This reasoning did not calm critics.

    #santé #états-unis #sécurité_sociale #rationalité