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Hoped-for effects that don’t materialize

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Key points

  • Neither theory nor professional opinion is a reliable guide to safe, effective treatments
  • Just because a treatment is ‘established’ does not mean it does more good than harm
  • Even if patients do not suffer from inadequately tested treatments, using them can waste individual and community resources

Introduction


Some treatments are in use for a long time before it is realized that they can do more harm than good.

In this section we explain how this may come about.