What Has Happened to Evidence-Based Practice?

Over the past few months of this pandemic, I have watched a host of news stories focused on treatments for COVID-19. I have watched our greatest health agencies, such as the CDC and FDA, and other health care experts being ignored or discredited by our current administration. I watched various news agencies and focused on the content of the story. I was not distracted by the host commentary since many news agencies are politically biased. I was in disbelief of what I was hearing. We have a physician supported by our current administration discuss how alien DNA are being used in medical treatment and blaming medical conditions on witches and demons. ¹ A pillow salesman is advocating the FDA to approve oleandrin for treatment of coronavirus without any evidence of effectiveness. ²

I was without words. As a pharmacist and clinician who has been trained my whole life to scrutinize the best medical literature, this is what our best medical advice has come down too? Alien DNA, witches, demons, and unproven claims. Anyone who can grab the attention of our current administration and to spout lies, folklore and snake oil claims are now our health care experts. No matter your political affiliation or beliefs I would plea to all pharmacists reading this to consider the consequences of this thinking. I am not asking you to vote one way or another. I ask you as an intelligent colleague, healthcare professional and someone with simple common sense. If we continue down this road of dismissing our health care experts including evidence-based practice what will be the future of healthcare?  What you say to patients, will it really matter? They would rather trust the information given to them from the internet, quackery or a pillow salesman. Your education and training will not matter.

Please continue to advocate for the right care for your patients. Continue to help them determine what health information is right and what is wrong. I believe if your patients have your trust you will guide them through these dark times of misinformation. Like any storm, this soon shall pass and hopefully we will get back on track as a nation. I am concerned, if we have another four years of this misinformation, including ignoring our health care experts, it may cause irreparable harm to our country.

Michael J. Cawley, PharmD, RRT, CPFT, FCCM, has more than 25 years of experience practicing in the areas of medical, surgical, trauma, and burn intensive care as both a critical care clinical pharmacist and registered respiratory therapist.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Population Health Learning Network. Any content provided by our bloggers or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

References:

1. BBC News. Stella Immanuel – the doctor behind unproven coronavirus cure claim. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53579773. Accessed August 16, 2020.
2. Vanity Fair. The my Pillow Guy wants to bring Trump’s Covid miracle cure to life. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/08/the-mypillow-guy-wants-to-bring-trumps-covid-miracle-cure-to-life. Accessed August 20, 2020.