PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - R E Ashcroft
TI  - Current epistemological problems in evidence based medicine
AID  - 10.1136/jme.2003.007039
DP  - 2004 Apr 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 131--135
VI  - 30
IP  - 2
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/30/2/131.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/30/2/131.full
SO  - J Med Ethics2004 Apr 01; 30
AB  - Evidence based medicine has been a topic of considerable controversy in medical and health care circles over its short lifetime, because of the claims made by its exponents about the criteria used to assess the evidence for or against the effectiveness of medical interventions. The central epistemological debates underpinning the debates about evidence based medicine are reviewed by this paper, and some areas are suggested where further work remains to be done. In particular, further work is needed on the theory of evidence and inference; causation and correlation; clinical judgment and collective knowledge; the structure of medical theory; and the nature of clinical effectiveness.