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It is very disappointing to see the meaningless and ugly expression
"number needed to harm" being used in the title of a BMJ article. More
than 12 years ago Doug Altman pointed out in this very journal that
"number needed to harm" was a poor term, and suggested that we should use
the much more accurate expression "number needed to treat (harm)" (or
NNTH) instead. Obviously, this suggestion has not yet been universally
adopted, even though "number needed to harm" is clearly inferior. Journal
editors (including those of the BMJ!) please take note!
Altman DG. Confidence intervals for the number needed to treat. BMJ
1998;317:1309
"Number needed to harm"
It is very disappointing to see the meaningless and ugly expression
"number needed to harm" being used in the title of a BMJ article. More
than 12 years ago Doug Altman pointed out in this very journal that
"number needed to harm" was a poor term, and suggested that we should use
the much more accurate expression "number needed to treat (harm)" (or
NNTH) instead. Obviously, this suggestion has not yet been universally
adopted, even though "number needed to harm" is clearly inferior. Journal
editors (including those of the BMJ!) please take note!
Altman DG. Confidence intervals for the number needed to treat. BMJ
1998;317:1309
Competing interests: No competing interests