Common Ground

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This article is something of interest to us all:

http://commonground.ca/iss/198/cg198_cassels.shtml

but not surprising. thanks for sharing, I'm saving that one.

Very interesting indeed. I experienced this kind of statistical manipulation first hand when my doctor was pressuring me to induce labour for my overdue baby. He said that the mortality rate would increase by 33% if I let the baby go 2 weeks overdue. The real risk of mortality DID increase by that amount: It went from a little over 1 in 1000 for babies at 40 weeks, to closer to 2 in 1000 for babies at 42 weeks. So relative risk increase was about 33%, but absolute risk increase was about 0.1%.

So, one way you can get straighter numbers out of a doctor is asking if the percents refer to relative risk or absolute risk.