Let’s assume there was a health problem. Let’s assume that some doctors thought that 70% of the instances of that problem was caused by a specific virus, but no one is sure. Let’s assume that some researchers had a drug that some people thought stopped that virus, but no one is for sure…. and in those instances where everything was right, it might not provide protection in all cases, plus it has the possibility of side effects.

Do those sound like good odds? Let’s just say that the unknowns were actually correct 75% of the time. That means that it would help less than 40% of the people who take it…. and that’s only if they’re right.

I know that sounds like a far-fetched scenario… but keep this in mind when you watch TV ads for all the drugs being pushed to market.

(Of course my personal favorite is when they try to sell a drug to cure depression.. oh, but by the way, the drug has a very good chance of causing people to become suicidal….. Huh?)

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 am and is filed under hmmmm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.