Few books are more timely or relevant to health care in our age than Helen Pearson’s new study, Beyond Belief - How Evidence Shows What Really Works, according to historian and health journalist, Chris Holme

Beyond Belief is just that. It is aimed at the general reader but is equally compelling for health professionals.

Professor Pearson charts the progress and adoption of evidence-based medicine (EBM) into the NHS and across the world.

It was inspired by the controlled trials in the Royal Navy conducted 250 years ago by Scottish surgeon James Lind which assessed the value of citrus fruits to combat scurvy.

As a result, British sailors were spared suffering and death from a horrible disease and American sailors coined the slang term slang “limey” for Brits.

Lind inspired the Galashiels-born doctor Archie Cochrane, who in turn inspired Iain Chalmers to set up the Cochrane Collaboration whose researchers produce the Cochrane reviews of treatments.

Helen Pearson is a senior editor for Nature magazine, so she knows her stuff and her book is the culmination of many years’ research. She writes with warmth, wit and wisdom teasing out the complexities of the issue in plain and engaging language.

Medicine relies on trust between patient and clinician. Some people may still believe every treatment has been forged on the anvil of scientific certitude.

This delusion was exposed by the catastrophic consequences of tragedies like thalidomide and Dr Spock’s advice for babies to sleep face down.

Professor Pearson also chronicles the impact of evidence-based research in other areas such as education, policing, the environment, and management.

The basic question is testing what works and what doesn’t. Finding answers through controlled trials isn’t easy but worth the effort, much of it unpaid through volunteers in the Cochrane Collaboration

Medicine has always had quacks, charlatans and snake oil salesmen. But disinformation and conspiracy theories are now instantly amplified through the internet by swimming in the shark-infested cesspools of social media.

This is where Helen Pearson’s book really shines by setting out the benefits of rigorous evidence – how got here and where to go next.

 

Chris Holme is a freelance historian and former Reuters Foundation fellow in medical journalism.

Helen Pearson’s Beyond Belief - How Evidence Shows What Really Works, is published by Princeton University Press, £25.

 

Read more from Chris Holme: The father of evidence-based medicine; Pilton, Paisley and people-based medicine; Scotland’s first chief scientist; TB and the Edinburgh physician