{"id":3643,"date":"2005-02-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pharma-mkting.com\/index.php\/2005\/02\/01\/pmn42-article04\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T18:08:30","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T18:08:30","slug":"pmn42-article04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/articles\/pmn42-article04\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers, Math and Communicating Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Numbers, Math and Communicating Risk “You want numbers? You can’t handle numbers!”
The FDA would like more risk information to be presented in direct to consumer (DTC) drug advertising (see “FDA Draft Guidance for Print DTCA: Less than Feared<\/a>“). Some DTC experts want the drug industry to take the lead in communicating risk. <\/p>\n

To make sense of trial data and risk information in DTC ads, you need to look at numbers. As pointed out in a recent Washington Post article, “many people don’t demand the same kinds of numbers [as they do with money matters] when judging medical findings.” To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men, “You want numbers? You can’t handle numbers!” <\/p>\n

This article examines the numbers from Vioxx trials to illustrate how difficult it may be to communicate risk and benefit to consumers. <\/p>\n

Take the CLINICAL TRIAL BRAIN TEASER<\/a>.<\/b> <\/p>\n

Sometimes, not all the critical data from a trial are available and you need to do some math to calculate risk. Here’s an example from a recent article published in the press (I won’t reveal the source because I want you to do the math). <\/p>\n