There are huge, gross mistakes made everyday by medical professionals in any field you could care to name. My earlier comments about disagreements in neurology were not specious; I meant this as an illustration of just how far off the mark many doctors are -- esteemed specialists included. We do not have the option of just regulating all these disciplines out of business.
This is not to reject science, but rather, to urge some recognition of the limits of current scientific knowledge.
There is astonishingly little that is actually known for sure about the causes of pain, and what will relieve it. Certainly those with a monopoly in a certain state-sponsored approach will try to make it out to be otherwise but it is a mistake to take their word at face value, without recognizing the vested interests they have at stake along with the real lack of reliable information.
There has been some discussion about peer review. The CMAJ is one of the most highly esteemed medical journals in the world. Two years ago they fired their editors and it became public knowledge the extent to which the publication is beholden to its owner -- the CMA, an advocacy group lobbying for the interests of its members which constitute over three quarters of the licensed physicians in Canada.
This is just one of the sources of bias that so clearly affects the information published in these journals. Other vested interests, all profit-driven, determine not only what is studied but who studies it, how, and whether the information ever sees the light of day much less be subjected to peer review.