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Risks in Medical Intervention: Balancing Therapeutic Risks and Benefits

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The Future of Predictive Safety Evaluation

Abstract

It has been estimated that about 100 billion human beings have walked on the surface of the Earth. If this is correct, it is an intriguing thought that one in 25 of them is alive today. In spite of famine, floods, plagues and wars, enough of each generation have survived not only to replace those lost in natural or self-inflicted disasters but also to expand the species at a rate which creates risks almost infinitely greater than any that we will discuss this evening. Our numbers have increased, we live much longer and we have more time to indulge in one of our favourite obsessions, which is concern about risk.

A reprint of the Wolfson College Lecture, Oxford, 31 January 1984. Reprinted by kind permission of Oxford University Press

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© 1986 MTP Press Limited

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Inman, W.H.W. (1986). Risks in Medical Intervention: Balancing Therapeutic Risks and Benefits. In: Worden, A.N., Parke, D.V., Marks, J. (eds) The Future of Predictive Safety Evaluation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4139-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4139-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8336-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4139-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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