Want to create a cure for addiction with an 80-98% success rate? Easy-peasy. Just don’t count treatment drop-outs in your statistics-- a fact that numerous programs have capitalized on to sell themselves over the last 50 years. Alternatively, you can only admit addicted doctors to your treatment: but this severely limits your market.
Continue reading 'How to lie with statistics: drug treatment version 100.8' >
60 Minutes highlighted an expensive new addiction treatment called Prometa on Sunday-- the first half primarily consisting of “miracle cure” testimonials, the second exposing the fact that scientific studies don’t actually back the incredible claims being made for it.
A little context would have helped enormously. Although 60 Minutes made much of the idea that this is the first time a medical addiction cure had been sold without getting FDA approval, a “miracle” heroin detox has been sold virtually identically since the late 90’s.
Continue reading 'Take addiction cure reporting with large grain of salt' >
