BMJ  2004;329:1-2 (3 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.1

Editorial

The road to health care

Balancing benefits and harms of interventions is essential

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

"There are some patients that we cannot help; there are none whom we cannot harm."

Attributed to Arthur L Bloomfield

Before you next get into your car or walk out into the street, reflect that the number of deaths from road crashes in the United Kingdom is about 3400 a year.¹ Elsewhere in the world the rates are up to six times higher.² Now compare that with the extrapolated figure for the United Kingdom of more than twice that number of deaths each year from adverse drug reactions, estimated from the results of a prospective study published in this theme issue of the BMJ.³ Now try to estimate the benefit to harm balance of a road trip and the benefit to harm balance of a drug that you have recently used.

But drugs are far from being the only interventions we use in health care; even when drugs are . . . [Full text of this article]

BMA House, London WC1H 9JR (lgcuervo@bmjgroup.com)

University of Oxford, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6HE (jeffrey.aronson@clinpharm.ox.ac.uk)

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Caring for patients..........

Dr. Bhalendu S. Vaishnav
bmj.com, 2 Jul 2004 [Full text]

Brace for impact!

des spence
bmj.com, 4 Jul 2004 [Full text]

Information about benefits and harms should be accessible to patients

Joanne M Shaw
bmj.com, 5 Jul 2004 [Full text]

Health consumers, health providers and health systems: an interdependent triad

Dr. Naseem A. Qureshi MD, IMAPA, LMIPS
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SAFE practice

Stephen M Drage
bmj.com, 8 Jul 2004 [Full text]