Saturday, October 16, 2010

Magic numbers

They're bad for our bodies, finances, and more.

4 comments:

Jason (the commenter) said...

I think the opinion piece was a little too short to prove his thesis.

And as an aside, superbugs come from people taking antibiotics over too short of a period, not too long of one. Telling people to take them for seven days is probably better than telling them to take them for three.

John Althouse Cohen said...

Even if he got the science wrong, doesn't that still prove his point? He says our obsession with doing things for exactly 7 days is a problem even if it causes someone to take just one pill too many. He should have changed that to: it's a problem even if it causes someone to take just one pill too few.

Jason (the commenter) said...

But he said we only need to take them for three days, so one pill less than seven isn't a problem. Seems like doctors expect us to only listen to half of what they say.

And it may be one science mistake, but when you say so little, one mistake is a large percentage of what you're talking about.

John Althouse Cohen said...

But he said we only need to take them for three days, so one pill less than seven isn't a problem.

His point is that if the optimal course were even 1 pill less than 3 a day for 7 days, that would be a problem since the patient would have taken 5% too much. If the optimal course is 3 a for 3 days, that's an even bigger problem.