It would have worked, If only. 'If only' medicine
Why we lost the game
If a drug company develops a heat shock protein inhibitor and tests it in cancer, the drug may shirk tumors, delay metastasis and improve survival or the drug might not— adding toxicity without benefit.
The company that makes the drug might say: it would have worked, if only…
If only… we used a lower dose
If only… we managed side effects earlier
If only… we gave it in the evening, not the morning
The problem with if only… medicine is that it can be said for anything. A drug can fail a hundred times, and you can think of 3 more ways to deliver it, and say if only …
This is why the burden of proof in medicine is to show your product works and not to keep making excuses why it didn't work, and say if only..
This lesson is not unique to drugs. It also applies to the topic of yesterday’s post: HEPA filters
A few readers wrote me saying
If only… they used more units
If only.. the increased the flow rate
Well, until your actually do that and prove it helps, it's just empty rhetoric. No different than the failed drug company.
Listening to proponents rationalize negative trials reminds me of interviews with losing sports teams.
If only.. we executed the defense
If only.. we didn't have so many injuries
If only.. we scored more points
Yes, sure but you didn't, so take the L and try again next time. The rest is just speculation.
HEPA filters have not shown they can improve any outcome in any setting in any population in all of human history. So run a positive trial, until then: if only…