"DGDevin" wrote in
m:

Han wrote:

You're right. Those things happen(ed). One thing wqas with a
prescription medication I forgot the name of. Available with
prescription anywhere in Europe (and I believe Canada), but not
approved in the US. Janssen (Belgian?) didn'twant to do the clinical
trials demanded by the FDA for this fairly cheap stuff, so it wasn't
available here. Why can't I remember the name?

Was it an anti-Alzheimer's drug? ;~) I have moments when I think I
should be looking into something along those lines.

The FDA cracks me up, they demand long R&D processes for some drugs so
Americans are the last people on earth to benefit from them, then they
approve drugs like Vioxx or Paxil that kill a bunch of folks because
the makers managed to keep quiet studies that showed they were sorta
dangerous. There's an agency that needs a good shakeup from top to
bottom.

Vioxx kills wice as many people as other drugs in common use for a very
long time already. Something like 2 in 10,000 rather than 1 in 10,000.
Statistically HIGHLY significant, but still a fairly small number. The
"interesting" point is that a rather convoluted theory was needed to
explain this, a theory that is highly likely correct, but it could also
be incorrect.

Do you gamble, like buying a lottery ticket? Chances of winning are
slim, like 1 in a million. In biomedicine something is called
statistically significant if there is less than 5% chance that the result
is simple coincidence. But there may be a more than 4% chance that it is
coincidence.

I need a beer.

--
Best regards
Han
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