Risk vs Reward in Medicine Must Be Better Understood
The world of advertising makes the object of its focus appealing; that has become the purpose of advertising. If the unappealing side of the object must be told, that is downplayed, of course. This concept is easy to talk about with drug commercials. The appealing part is fantasized in a very upbeat, happy world full of smiling actors. While the bad side of the drug is talked about, for the longest part of the commercial, usually, the actors are still frolicking happily about their fantasy. The end of the commercial ends with the statement “Ask your doctor if xxx is right for you”
Sound familiar?
Let’s see if we can begin to make sense of this for our ‘real world’ lives.
That means we have to talk about NNT and NNH as both of these are extremely important to our health and well being.
Let’s begins with NNT.
Number Needed to Treat: Treatments Don’t Work Like You Think They Work
But another problem is that a lot of those therapies are anything but benign. They come not only with costs, but also with side effects or problems.
We can quantify harms, too. Watch and learn about NNH!
So, with the current state of our medical industry, do we really want to succumb to simply ‘asking our doctor’ if the ‘latest and greatest’ touted (advertised) drug is right for you?
theNNT.com – provides several illustrative cases of NNT, NNH
