Re: Medical Research

In article <0AW9g.4721$u4.672@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
George Conklin <georgeconklin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Herman Rubin" <hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e48jb2$1cj8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Statistical significance says absolutely nothing about the
magnitude of the effect, nor does its lack.

Whether a treatment is good is not changed by collecting
data, and intelligent decision making will cause the use of
many treatments before that much information is present.

Suppose you had a disease which was about 50% lethal, and
you gave a million people each a placebo or a treatment.
Suppose the difference of the survival rates was 1% in
favor of the treatment. That is extremely significant, so
much so that one could say it was proved that the treatment
had an effect. I suggest that an experimental treatment
which has cured three out of three is a better bet,
although this is not statistically significant.

Well, Herman, that is just what Skeptic did to me. He sent me to look at
a study with a lot of faults which had a test of significance where,
according to the study, "The absolute reduction in the risk of death after
10 years is small" but signficant statistically on the other hand. Small.
So you pretty well predicted the response from Skeptic. Now what?


The same answer as before; statistical decision theory.

The medical profession should provide the information
needed to approximate the odds for the various risks and
benefits for the various types of treatments, taking into
account the characteristics of the individual, not just
demographics, or the results from badly designed studies.
This should including drugs which had not been
"sufficiently" tested.

BTW, there was a recent article about the supplement
black cohosh. It seems that most of the material sold
is not black cohosh, which is scarce, but a Chinese
alternative, the effectiveness of which was questioned.
Now regardless of which has the best benefits, our
current laws against fraud should be sufficient here
for some action to be taken, and if anything, they
should be strengthened.


--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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