Testing Medicine, Ctd

Physician Abraham Verghese isn't sold on "Comparative Effectiveness" research:

I worry that "Comparative Effectiveness"  or "CE" is going to be the next medical buzz word, just like "Evidence Based Medicine" or "EBM" has been the buzz word for a decade.  "Evidence Based Medicine" is a term which makes about as much sense as "Sex-based intercourse"--Were we practicing based on zodiac signs before EBM came along?  (By the way, I borrowed "sex based intercourse" after hearing a prominent chair of medicine say it--I don't know if he coined it, but I thought it was brilliant). Soon we'll have a generation of physicians who are CE experts to bump out the EBM experts.

Tyler Cowen and Arnold Kling are also skeptical. Hilzoy's defense of CE here.