Feather emerges from baby's neck
"No one knew what was bothering 7-month-old Mya Whittington. Her
discomfort stumped her parents and doctors. She was finally hospitalized
- and
a 2-inch feather eventually poked its way out of her neck, shocking everyone."
What happens when a drug works — but only for one person?
Really, really intriguing piece at Nature News by Heidi Ledford. It's all about a class of patients called
"exceptional responders" — aka, the people who got a benefit (sometimes
a big one) from a medication or treatment that otherwise failed the
clinical trial process. When we do clinical trials, we're looking at
group averages. We want to know whether a drug performed better than
placebo when administered to lots of people. Sometimes, though, drugs
that can't do that do seem to have a positive effect for a few lucky
individuals. Now, scientists are trying to figure out why that is. What
makes those people special? And how should this change the way we do
research?
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