People I (Mostly) Admire 41. Dr. Bapu Jena on Why Freakonomics Is the Best Medicine
Aug 21, 2021
Bapu Jena, a Harvard physician and economist, applies innovative economic methods to delve into medical research. He explores the vital role of randomized experiments in establishing causality and expresses frustration over traditional study limitations, especially regarding red meat and heart health. Jena discusses the ethical challenges of human-challenge trials and reflects on COVID-19 transmission in social gatherings. With a touch of humor, he underscores the importance of embracing unconventional thinking in medicine and shares insights from his new podcast, Freakonomics, M.D.
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Randomized Experiments in Medicine
- Randomized experiments are the gold standard in medicine for determining causality.
- They aim to isolate the impact of a single variable by holding all others constant.
Clinical Epidemiology and its Limitations
- Clinical epidemiology uses observational data to understand treatment effectiveness, but doesn't randomize treatment.
- This can lead to inaccurate conclusions if other influencing factors aren't considered.
Cancer Drug Example
- Bapu Jena uses a cancer drug example to explain how clinical epidemiology can be misleading.
- If a new drug is only given to patients with worse cancer, it may appear less effective than it actually is.