Looking for the Final Word on Treatment

The medical world is awash in new information.

Each year 800,000 scientific articles are added to the Library of Congress. This surely reflects a healthy pace of scientific inquiry, yet all too often the findings on health care wildly conflict. On topics as diverse as the possible benefits of vitamin E, the usefulness of the annual physical exam, or the safety of hormone replacement therapy, yesterday’s facts have become today’s folly . . . more.