Mlive.com, June 24, 2008 UTMB's Howard Brody writes about a proposal to create a federal national center to act as a clearinghouse for reviewing medical evidence.  Problem is, Brody writes, that such a center existed.  It was called the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and it issued guidelines for clinical care.  But when the agency concluded that the vast majority of people with low back pain did not need a lot of X-rays or surgery, a doctor with powerful connections got Congress to effectively eliminate the agency's budget for writing guidelines.  A new agency, Brody writes, won't work unless "Congress can figure out some way to create it -- and then get the heck off its back and let it function without politicians sticking their noses into its work."