“Nothing should be done by the medical profession that may arouse unwarranted hope among the public and be followed by disappointment and distrust of medical science and the medical profession.” JAMA represented the American Medical Association. AMA leaders had worked for decades to bring scientific standards and professionalism to medicine. They had only recently succeeded. They did not want to destroy the trust only recently established. They did not want medicine to become the mockery it had been not so long before.
