Every week medical science makes headlines with a promising new study or cure. Scientific reputations, corporate fortunes and a tide of human hopes rise and fall on such news. Studies can also stoke the general debate on this or that health benefit or risk.Often it's hard to tell ephemeral findings from epochal breakthroughs...A major problem arises when "things get taken out of context," says Oxford University professor Richard Peto.When researchers tease out selective results from a small subgroup, funny results can pop up. You can prove just about anything by slicing and dicing the data. Here is Peto's Proof:Taking a landmark study of 17 000 patients that proved aspirin as an effective treatment for heart attack, Dr. Peto shows you can reach a vastly different conclusion if you simply separate patients by their astrological sign. "Aspirin appeared totally ineffective for those born under Libra or Gemini," he concludes.
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