3 ms·
Ok, suppose the current standard treatment is A. You have a new treatment B that is 100x cheaper than B, and doesn't trigger allergic reactions that some people
by thayne 1y ago
Ok, suppose the current standard treatment is A. You have a new treatment B that is 100x cheaper than B, and doesn't trigger allergic reactions that some people have to A. You test against A, and the B group has slightly worse outcomes overall than A. Does that mean that B is useless? What if it is almost as effective, but it's lower cost means more people would be able to use it?
"better" is not a total order, one treatment may be better in some ways and worse in other ways. Especially if you include things like cost and availability.
- rileymat2 1y agoWouldn’t those factors be detected and reported on in the trial?
- refurb 1y agoYou just discovered the entire scientific field of cost-effectiveness.
- duskwuff 1y agoEven if that's the case, the metric you're interested in isn't "is Treatment B better than doing nothing"; it's "how effective is Treatment B relative to Treatment A". And the most effective way to determine that will be to trial them against each other, not against a placebo.
- thayne 1y agoIdeally, for getting good information, you compare to both. Because you also want to know if your treatment is more effective than a placebo.