REJECTION OF EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE: THE TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES :

A Harvard team has concluded that some 365,000 lives were needlessly lost during the many years that South Africa's former Health Minister established a policy rejecting anti-retrovirals and recommending, instead, a regimen of "garlic and beetlenut juice." (NY Times 26 Nov). Unfortunately, other countries persist in denial that also kills hundreds of thousands of its ciitzens. The Russian Federation is a case in point: Russia continues to forbid methadone as treatment for opiate dependence, even after 40 years of overwhelming worldwide evidence of the medication's efficacy for most patients. What is offered instead: essentially nothing!