Mission statement

To stimulate interest in evidence-based medicine and health policy amongst University of Washington students, especially students attending or planning to attend medical, veterinary, dental, pharmacy, nursing, public health, and other professional schools. We aim to inspire future healthcare providers to develop a strong sense of ethics by supporting the use of therapies and public health policies that are upheld by scientific research instead of superstition, anecdote, or pseudoscience. We also promote skepticism of "alternative medicine" among the general student population so everyone can make informed decisions about their own health.

SEBMAP was founded in the 2013-2014 school year by Sabrina Ursin, Tessa Forbes, Olisavia Veliz, Baihan Lin, and Pranav Mellacheruvu. See our current officers here.

"Can I come and yell at you about Monsanto and Big Pharma?"

SEBMAP is not a debate club. We are firmly in favor of evidence-based medicine and a rigorously scientific approach to healthcare. We welome everyone at our meetings and events so long as you remain civil, non-disruptive, and don't try to prevent others from listening and speaking.

Just as the Model United Nations club doesn't exist to debate whether the UN is secretly controlled by the Illuminati, and the Planned Parenthood club doesn't exist to debate whether AIDS was invented by the CIA, SEBMAP doesn't give "equal time" to conspiracy theory promoters. We side with the scientific consensus on controversial-yet-shouldn't-be topics like evolution, fluoride, vaccines, genetically modified foods, and more.

How Do We Define "Alternative Medicine"?

Alternative medicine is any product or service that claims to provide a health benefit, yet has not been proven safe and effective through real, unbiased, well-designed scientific studies. This includes things like acupuncture, chiropractors, most herbal medicines and supplements, naturopaths, homeopathy, reiki, "toxin" cleanses, fad diets like gluten-free or paleo, and basically anything that is sold as a "miracle" cure. Check out our resources page for more.