FDA panel: Keep Vioxx--Educate Masses post hoc

CNN.com - FDA panel: Keep Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra on market - Feb 18, 2005: "Meeting Chairman Alistair J.J. Wood of Vanderbilt University Medical School said it is important to find some way to help the public better understand the nature of risk.

'People worry about crime and then drive drunk,' he said, indicating they don't really understand relative risks."

Well, yes. And how do we intend to do that while we undermine education economically, and dilute it intellectually? We're cutting funds; we're dismissing science as optional; we're hoping for the best from our teens, whilst keeping them ignorant. We're enshrining profit and ownership, power and "success" at the expense of sustainable, neighborly business and farming practices and open public government, public oversight, and public discourse.

But by all means lets find a way to help the public at large understand what most of our educated professionals and government representatives don't seem to grasp, the nature of statistics, and the moral calculus of medicine. Sure. Maybe in the funny papers we can start.