Review of randomised controlled trials

The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) published a tongue-in-cheek study on Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials (Links to an external site.). While somewhat humorous, the post brings up an important consideration, Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticized the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. Is this a fair criticism? What are your thoughts on the subject? What do we do in a case where the treatment for the control group might result in death or injury to the subjects?
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