Premium
Evidence‐based medicine and epistemological imperialism: narrowing the divide between evidence and illness
Author(s) -
Crowther Helen,
Lipworth Wendy,
Kerridge Ian
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2753.2011.01723.x
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , evidence based medicine , epistemology , sociology of health and illness , alternative medicine , public health , psychology , medicine , health care , political science , psychiatry , philosophy , nursing , law , pathology
Evidence‐based medicine (EBM) has been rapidly and widely adopted because it claims to provide a method for determining the safety and efficacy of medical therapies and public health interventions more generally. However, as others have noted, EBM may be riven through with cultural bias, both in the generation of evidence and in its translation. We suggest that technological and scientific advances in medicine accentuate and entrench these cultural biases, to the extent that they may invalidate the evidence we have about disease and its treatment. This creates a significant ethical, epistemological and ontological challenge for medicine.