How Not to Run a Comparative Effectiveness Agency

A version of this article first appeared on the Guardian (UK) website. We live in an age where the answer to many questions is available with the click of a mouse. But when it comes to health care, asking what works best gets a sick person text messages from the Tower of Babel. If you’re in your 60s and have a slow-growing prostate tumor, should you cut it out, take a drug, stick in a radiating seed, or just watch and wait? Ask a surgeon, a urologist, a radiologist and general practitioner