Vinay Prasad on Medical Reversal: warns against

What Prasad says

Dr. Vinay Prasad warns against medical reversal — the adoption of medical practices without randomized-trial evidence, later contradicted when proper trials are finally run. His career-defining 2013 analysis found 146 contradicted medical practices, with roughly 10% of reversals in oncology. He warns that new technologies spread “without clear evidence that they work,” a theme developed in his 2015 book Ending Medical Reversal (with Adam Cifu).

His stated reasoning

Prasad’s stated reasoning is that medicine routinely adopts interventions on the basis of weak evidence, pathophysiologic reasoning, or observational data, and that patients bear the cost when those practices are later disproven. Randomized trials before widespread adoption, he says, are the only reliable guard against the cycle.

This page chronicles a stated position of the person above. It is not medical advice and not the site's own conclusion.