Linda in Quito, central square
At the time known as pick-pocket central
In this blog
series I have written several times about the benefit of universal genetic
testing of women for susceptibility to ovarian and breast cancer. If I had my way, every little girl baby at birth would have her foot pricked, yielding
a precious little drop of blood, which immediately would go into a machine that
would test for mutations in the BRCA genes and others known trouble
makers. Surprisingly, NIH has failed to
adopt my scheme, citing its rather immense cost. Well, now a bunch of medical economist types
in Germany purport to have shown that some sort of scheme like this is cost effective! And that’s as much as I can tell
you. Here, puzzle through it yourself:
The analysis
summarized above involves measures like
ICER (incremental cost effectiveness ratio) and QALY (quality-adjusted life
years). I googled these objects and –
Stanford economics grad though I am – understood them not at all. Maybe you
will do better. Anyway, good news, I
guess.
If we can’t trust German
medico-statisticians we are in big
trouble!
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