Let's speak about Evidence-based Medicine.
Thanks.
Giuseppe
At 19.25 30/10/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Regarding Osher Doctorow's comments to Jacob Puliyel: What comes to my mind
>is how the discipline of EBM has helped me in other arenas-and may help in
>this as well. By challenging basic dogma or 'gold standards'; through
>listening to counterintuitive ideas, and by actively attempting to falsify a
>thesis, one really can find that an outcome is not what one anticipates.
>
>If we use this approach, then we have to start with definitions. If we
>define "breast cancer" as any malignant lesion of the breast and mammography
>is available, then we include intraductal carcinoma in situ - a disease that
>had no definition until the advent of mammography. In this way, we can
>introduce spectrum-, inclusion- and lead- or length-time bias in studies
>when we look at the pre- and post-mammogram era. This led to one aspect of
>the current mammography brouhaha.
>
>After reading O. Doctorow's comments - I wonder if we read the same Chomsky
>article posted on the EMB list? Let's start with definitions. Certainly,
>you've heard the adage, "One person's terrorist is another person's
>liberation fighter." But we shouldn't be too glib about that. What does it
>mean? It means that Osama bin Laden was a "freedom fighter" according to
>the CIA and the Pentagon when he was our boy, on our payroll - as was Papa
>Doc Duvalier, Suharto, Marcos, Mobutu, Trujillo, Somoza and a long, bloody
>string of thugs.
>
>Of course, no one in the CIA or Pentagon is calling bin Laden a "freedom
>fighter" any longer. But if we are true to a definition of terrorism as
>someone or some group attempting to rule or gain control through fear and
>force and the use of violence directed against non-combatants - then we must
>consider quite a few U.S. actions are "terroristic" including the support of
>ex-Cubans to down a Cuban plane killing over 100 civilians (shall we bomb
>Florida for harboring these known terrorists?); or what about the U.S.
>backed overthrow of democratically elected leaders in Guatemala and Chile
>and the support of widespread and vicious thuggery in El Salvador, Southern
>Africa and many other parts of the world.
>
>What Chomsky was pointing out was not that "Eastern behavior" is beyond
>reproach (per O.D.'s suggestion) or that one must 'sit on the tiger' - he
>was simply pointing a very positive (and not at all 'depressing')
>viewpoint - that the U.S. has played a role in creating some of the very
>problems now haunting us. The enormously positive aspect is, therefore,
>that something can be done to reduce the violence. Of course from Chomsky's
>viewpoint (and my own) that 'something' lies more in the myriad other ways
>we can attempt to effect international change rather than a military
>response which is about as responsible (and effective) as bombing Florida
>because of the ex-Cubans or D.C. because of the President's horrific
>policies of supporting dictators.
>
>jeanne
Dr. Giuseppe Giocoli
Gruppo di Lavoro EBM
Associazione Microbiologi Clinici Italiani
Via Sarca, 19
25015 DESENZANO d/G (BS) Italia
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