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.
Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.
Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes.
There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.
Although the theory of relativity makes the greatest of demands on the ability for abstract thought, still it fulfills the traditional requirements of science insofar as it permits a division of the world into subject and object (observer and observed) and, hence, a clear formulation of the law of causality.
All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
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