The challenge of delivering evidence-based medicine in children’s care

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It is easy to overlook the fact that over 90% of medical treatments are not backed by strong evidence. People can find it frustrating – even infuriating – when a review concludes that the evidence for a treatment is too weak to say whether it helps or harms.

This has been the case with the NHS England’s recent decision to restrict new prescriptions of cross-sex hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds.

The struggle to base clinical decisions on solid evidence is not new...