Evidence-Based Medicine Matters

Janet Meenaghan

Evidence-based medicine matters to me because without it, I simply wouldn't be here. My mum developed Type 1 diabetes in 1946 when she was just 15. Evidence-based medicine had by that time discovered, trialled and tested the use of insulin for diabetes and this effectively kept my mum alive into adulthood. She went to college, worked full-time, got married, had children and grandchildren - all of these aspects of normal life possible only because evidence-based medicine had developed an effective and safe solution for diabetes sufferers. I was born in 1963 and my sister in 1964 - we and our own children are truly thankful that medicine has moved out of the dark ages, that it is underpinned by proper scientific testing and that rigorous standards apply for the introduction of all new treatments.