Intended for healthcare professionals

Counsellors And Acolytes

EBM: unmasking the ugly truth

BMJ 2002; 325 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.325.7378.1496 (Published 21 December 2002) Cite this as: BMJ 2002;325:1496
  1. Clinicians for the Restoration of Autonomous Practice (CRAP) Writing Group.
  1. Correspondence to: CRAP Writing Group, Poste Restante, London WC1H 9JR

    One morning we found a strange notice nailed to the door of the BMJ. On checking their email, all BMJ staff found the full, illustrated version of this report

    Clinicians for the Restoration of Autonomous Practice (CRAP) has written this report and nailed it to the door of the BMJ. We have done this anonymously and under cover of darkness to protect ourselves from retaliation from grand inquisitors in the new religion of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). Our report is based on documents liberated by undercover agents who have successfully infiltrated the EBM movement to uncover the truth about EBM, its hidden agenda, and the shadowy forces behind it. Despite repeated denials by the high priests of EBM that they have not founded a new religion, our report provides irrefutable proof that EBM is, indeed, a full-blown religious movement, complete with a priesthood, catechisms, a liturgy, religious symbols, and sacraments. We can confirm that proselytisation is now occurring on a global scale and threatens the very existence of for profit, doctor centred, authoritarian medicine as we know it. CRAP has issued this rallying call to all who wish to conserve our traditional values.

    10 commandments

    CRAP has long suspected that EBM secretly espouses cookbook medicine, based on a blind faith in “methodology,” the alchemistic philosophical basis for this religion. We can now confirm the existence of an EBM bible and catechisms, which were discovered by chance when one of our members removed the mini CD Rom from a recently published EBM textbook and played it backwards. The 10 commandments of EBM, which were reportedly delivered as a printout to a prophet on Mount Hamilton, were presented against a musical background (“All you need is trials”):

    • Thou shalt treat all patients according to the EBM cookbook, without concern for local circumstances, …

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