For instance, take a theoretical drug NNT is 5, NNH is 2. This theoretical drug prevents second heart attacks in patients likely to have one. The harmful side effect is GI bleeding.

It is completely arguable and reasonable to say that having a bleeding ulcer is a way better thing than having a heart attack, and so even if the NNH is one, meaning ever person that takes it gets a bleed, at least they have a chance of not getting a heart attack.

I’ve been on meds that caused me to have GI bleed. It wasn’t fun, and I even became anemic during the time it took to figure out that I had a GI bleed. But the med kept me from throwing any more clots so I didn’t have another stroke, so… yeah. Give me a GI bleed any day.

I’ve got a bit of experience with that. I react oddly to many medications. I’ve had permanent effects from medications I took for two or three weeks, years ago. I’m a walking six-sigma event. (This is not a compliment. Do not recommend.)

On a more serious note, what the study shows is that many medicines can be harmful to the genpop who does not need them. They need to be evaluated for the positive vs/ negative consequences for the small percentages of people who actually need them for a specific purpose. For example, if daily aspirin reduces your chance of dying from a heart attack by 50%, but only increases your chances of abdominal bleeding by 10%, it’s still a win. Especially if there are easy tells, like spontaneous bruising. (I’ll keep on taking mine, because I have ridiculously thick blood, and aspirin is the only painkiller that still works for me.)

In other words, none of this is new. Bayes theorem should always be applied. And that’s before we get into the enormous percentage of fraudulent medical studies and reports.

Duh.