It would be interesting to quantify the psychological effect of concrete actions compared with the feeling of impotency, separated from the placebo effect. I u

It would be interesting to quantify the psychological effect of concrete actions compared with the feeling of impotency, separated from the placebo effect. I understand the absolutist monetary argument: If a treatment is not consistently effective, yet costs a lot, services such as the NHS - and the pockets of those on lower incomes in other countries - suffer avoidable losses. But for an individual with a disease with no good prognosis, the feeling of doing something positive about this thing they have no control of will certainly have beneficial effects on their mental state, and provided it is not harmful, their body. A good example recently is in remitting / relapsing MS - patients have for a long time been prescribed large doses of Vitamin D. It turns out that Vitamin D is useful for MS sufferers, much as it is for the rest of the population (maybe a little more as a common side effect, photosensitivity, means they are likely less exposed to sunlight) but that actually they don't need anywhere near as much as they are being prescribed. (It is still being researched, so that study may yet be wrong.) My point is, if I told you "There's some evidence to say that this massive dose of Vit D will reduce the frequency of your relapses," you will feel like there is a positive step you can take to beneficially impact your situation. If, instead, I say "Take some vitamin D because it's good for you" that only leaves the crushing sensation of seemingly inevitable defeat. So I guess my point is, there is value in hope. Where there are major side effects, or the costs are wildly prohibitive, that's a very different equation and I'd probably follow the OP's conservatism on that. But I'd like to see some mention of the mental effects of this policy, as well as the positive impact on research that real-world use of new drugs has.