The FDA’s big personalized-medicine push
(UPDATED: See below.)
Personalized medicine — the idea that doctors will one day tailor your medical care based on your genetic profile — has been a long time coming, as I’ve previously written. As it turns out, that’s no fault of the Food and Drug Administration, which has emerged as one of the biggest fans of the concept. Yet the FDA is now pushing ahead with efforts to pair drugs with genetic tests in a way that… Continue Reading
Patients, CEOs and ideologues vs. evidence-based medicine
The first time you hear it, “evidence-based medicine” sounds like one of those goofily redundant phrases like “animated cartoon” or “past experience.” Aren’t doctors always carrying out studies of one sort or another? Isn’t medicine evidence-based already?
Well, no, not really. One of the biggest and least-understood problems in the U.S. healthcare system is that where many new drugs, medical devices and surgical techniques are concerned, there’s relatively little data as to which benefit patients… Continue Reading