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Previous Volume 358:2429-2431 June 5, 2008 Number 23 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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It's always instructive and often painful to contrast the impressive development of medical science with the more fitful evolution of health policy. The former marches forward more or less systematically; well-developed rules of evidence determine what works, and practical methods build on established facts and test new paradigms. Data and concepts proven true are rarely discarded or forgotten.

Not so with health policy. Although the field's evaluation tools can be rigorous, in practice what is proclaimed "true" often depends on who's doing the proclaiming and whose interests are being represented. As a result, though medical science has progressed fairly steadily, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Dr. Avorn is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Interfaculty Initiative on Medications and Society, and chief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital — all in Boston.

An interview with Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, can be heard at www.nejm.org.

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