[Value judgements in the analysis of evidence: largely non-transparent, frequently contentious and never avoidable]

The existence of value judgements in a science of professional action like medicine is quite uncontroversial. Anything but uncontroversial, though, is the existence of value judgements in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) processes. While value judgements are largely accepted in prioritizing HTA topics the awareness of value judgements in the analysis of evidence in the context of HTA is only rudimentary. The present contribution argues that value judgements do occur in the analysis of evidence in the context of HTA and that they are of practical significance since they have an impact on the final results in a practice relevant manner. I will present value judgements in the determination of threshold values required for establishing the level of significance or for deding on the inclusion of trials. Taking examples from the research on and the discussion of HTA methods I will then show how the blind spot concerning value judgements is currently dealt with and how an appropriate way of dealing with it in the future might look like.