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On Sun 30 Nov, David Havard wrote: > Hi Brian > > Thank you for your pertinent comments. > > "> Perhaps the most useful statistic would be: What percentage of users > of a > > particular drug suffer side effects? It sounds simple, but I suspect that a > > meaningful representative result is beyond the resources of this list. It > > would be no use to usto have an inaccurate result, nor would it be fair to > > I agree entirely. Simplicity was what I was after. Over the past few > months I have gained an impression from peoples comments, but is this > valid? Maybe negative comments are more likely to be written about. > > People seem to ask for an awful lot of advice here - so whats happened > to the medical and voluntary support systems? My vested interest was to > know if my impression was correct. > > I take it (no offence) that you are amibvalent to the survey and put you > in the negative file - so far 6 for and 2 negatives - I put a lot of > weight on Delda White's negative comment - if too many people do not > participate its not worth it. > > Would you help me with a qc (second opinion) of what I put out if this > thing gets off the ground. > > Thanks Hello David - My reservations about the proposed survey are not directed at the desirability of aquiring information about drug effects; it is the problem of the small number of responses that typically result from such a survey. It seems reasonable to expect a response in the realm of 100 to 200 from the 1500 members of the list, and armed with that sort of data we might begin to get some useful information. I would suggest a few guidelines as follows: 1. Make the question(s) simple, unambiguous, and relevant 2 Phrase the question(s) in such a way that the answer(s) can be short and direct. 3 Get the support of some of the more regular contributors to the list: If they can stir their 'fan clubs' into action who knows - we might begin to get somewhere. I suspect that if we could get one large-scale response, and show the potential of 'people-power' it may begin to snowball into a really useful service. - How many neurologists have access to 1500 potential responders ? Re: the second opinion request, I am prepared to do this (Of course, I may not agree with your findings, but I assume that you are prepared for this). Regards, -- Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>