Thread by @PWGTennant

It's worrying for a new NICE guidance to be delayed and undermined on the grounds it doesn't match 'clinical experience'.

If the scientific evidence always matched 'clinical experience', there'd be no point to research or evidence based medicine... 🤔

#EBM #EpiTwitter

https://twitter.com/RobertHMcMullen/status/1428375470731636738

If 'evidence based medicine' is working there should be REGULAR occasions when the 'evidence' not only disagrees with 'clinical experience' but actively contradicts it.

Wherever 'clinical experience' is allowed to overrule 'scientific evidence', we return to quackery.

'Clinical experience' can be extremely misleading, and history is littered with examples. That's why we take a wider dispassionate view and aim to update practice based on science. This principle is the main distinction between contemporary medicine and 'medicine' of old.

I'm not saying health science is flawless. On the contrary, it suffers many distorting influences. But it still beats clinical paternalism.

All health scientists and proponents of evidence based medicine should therefore be concerned by this unusual interference with NICE.

I published some research recently with some 'surprising' results. The relevant Royal College was interested in the work until they saw the results.

This bothered me. A good practitioner should be more interested in research that contradicts their beliefs than support them.

There is a terrible arrogance within Western medicine that doubts the existence of anything that we can't yet explain.

When the causes of ME/CFS are eventually understood, I fear that some of today's doctors won't seem much better than the quacks of old.

Here's my 'scientific experience'

Results match 'clinical experience': "We knew this already"

Results contradict with 'clinical experience': "This can't be true"

It takes a LOT to overthrow established beliefs. That's why authorities like NICE are SO important!

Note: I've been suffering from worsening fatigue for the past few weeks. I've gone from running 20km+ to struggling to leave my flat in just 4 weeks. Work is very hard & I'm feeling scared & hopeless. I can't imagine the horror of living with this (and worse) for years/decades.