Making the case for comparative effectiveness research

Comparative effectiveness research has been painted as the road to rationing by some critics of the $1.1 billion federal effort to evaluate the relative benefits of different treatments for diseases.

Three articles in tomorrow's New England Journal of Medicine, including one by Dr. Jerry Avorn of Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital, make the case for the program, hoping it will find answers that will deliver on the promise of personalized medicine, improve the safety and affordability of healthcare, and make sure that patients receive the fruits of research.

Avorn, a critic of the pharmaceutical industry, welcomes a way to compare new drugs, devices, or procedures against one another, rather than placebo.

"It represents one of the best investments we can make to edge the health care system away from the fiscal catastrophe it faces, since such studies will help to reduce spending on poorer clinical decisions and to spare resources for expenditures that will help patients most (and most affordably)," he writes. "This research is a public good, like highways and clean air."