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Medicine

Why Doctors Hate Science 1064

theodp writes "A 2004 study found some 10 million women lacking a cervix were still getting Pap tests. Only problem is, a Pap test screens for cervical cancer — no cervix, no cancer. With this tale, Newsweek's Sharon Begley makes her case for comparative-effectiveness research (CER), which is receiving $1 billion under the stimulus bill for studies to determine which treatments, including drugs, are more medically sound and cost-effective than others for a given ailment. Physicians, Begley says, must stop treatments that are rooted more in local medical culture than in medical science, embrace practices that have been shown scientifically to be superior to others, and ignore critics who paint CER as government control of doctors' decision-making."

Comment Re:Err (Score 1) 580

And what do those stats 78% and 80% mean?

If you have 100 people approach and ALL 100 of them have mal-intent... and then system only alerts you to 78 or 80 of them... then sure, you've got a 78-80 percent success record I guess.

It'd be much nicer if 100 people approached and only ONE of them had mal-intent and it was able to spot that person 78-80% of the time... AS LONG AS it is 100% perfect at correctly identifying the other 99 innocent people as innocent people.

78-80% success rate doesn't sound so good if it means that I have a 20-22% chance of getting a full body cavity search every time I get within 500 feet of the police.

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