It is true that some off-label drug use is based on very unsettled science and has more risks. But medicine - and not just cancer care - involves lots of hard choices. And the more serious the disorder, often the more likely it is that for every right and wrong treatment choice there are many other practical decisions painted in shades of gray.
Interpretation
Medical decisions often involve difficult choices and uncertainties.
This quote highlights the complexity of medical decision-making, particularly in cases involving off-label drug use. It suggests that while there are established treatments, there are many scenarios where choices are not clear-cut, and decisions must be made amidst uncertainty and varying degrees of risk, reflecting the complexities of healthcare.
In practice
During a medical conference discussing treatment options for complex conditions.
Science offers the chance to cure debilitating and once-intractable disorders like hemophilia and sickle cell disease. But we need to make sure the ability to access these therapies, or the risk that someone can be locked out of them, doesn't widen gaps between the rich and poor.
In fast moving fields like cancer, where doctors tailor treatments based on evidence that's constantly evolving, two years can be an eternity of waiting to learn about important science. For some patients, that interval can be fatal.
We need to make sure that access to a curative drug doesn't become a yardstick by which poverty is eventually measured. Doing so requires a shared commitment between innovators and the insurance plans that are harder pressed to offer these advances to the poor.
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
As followers of natural science we know nothing of any relation between thoughts and the brain, except as a gross correlation in time and space.
No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely.
We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don't know the probability that a planet develops life.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
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