Articles Quote by Kenny Ausubel
“Amazingly, 85 percent of prescribed standard medical treatments across the board lack scientific validation, according to the New York Times. Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, suggests that this is partly because only one percent of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound, and partly because many treatments have never been assessed at all.”
About This Quote
Source Interview: New York Times discussion on medical validation, 2020
Most standard medical treatments lack solid scientific backing; few journal articles are reliable.
In simple terms: Many treatments are unproven; research quality is low.
Key Takeaway
Demand stronger evidence for treatments.
Themes
medicine
science
skepticism
Mood
critical
concerned
Type
informative
analytical
When to use this quote
- patient care decisions
- policy making
- health education
- clinical practice
Key Concepts
validation
research methodology
clinical trials
journal standards
Questions to Reflect On
- What evidence would convince you of a treatment’s efficacy?
- How can patients influence research standards?
A Different Perspective
Changing entrenched practices is challenging.
![“I wrote an article about the marine landing [in Haiti] right away, but barely mentioned the oil, because my article would come out two months later and I assumed by then, "of course, everybody knows." Nobody knew. There was a news report in the Wall Street Journal, in the petroleum journals, and…” quote by Noam Chomsky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/dc5/noam-chomsky-42_articles_i-wrote-an-article-about-the-marine-land_13341.jpg)
