At 'The Best of Medicine' debate on Thursday 26 June vaccination was voted the overall winner. In joint second place were family planning and homeopathy with evidence-based medicine in fourth place.

‘The Best of Medicine’ and ‘The Worst of Medicine’ were two free debates designed to stimulate public debate and argument about the best and worst ideas, phenomena, developments and practices in the history of medicine. There was also an online debate and discussion at ‘spiked’ where experts and the public were able to add their thoughts and views.

The event was facilitated by Fiona Fox, Director, Science Media Centre.

This event was followed by ‘The Worst of Medicine’ on 17 July.

Watch the video above for audience interviews before and after the event (Read the transcript [PDF 40KB]). Watch the videos below to see each speaker explain their argument.

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  Vaccination

  Michael Worboys, Director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester argues for vaccination

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  Evidence-based medicine

  Raymond Tallis, Emeritus Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester argues for evidence-based medicine

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  Homeopathy

  Sara Eames, GP and President of the Faculty of Homeopathy argued for homeopathy, which was chosen from the most popular topics on the online forum

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  Family planning

  Zoe Williams, columnist at the 'Guardian' argued for family planning