The number 'needed to treat' is how many people have to be treated before one person is saved from dying. It shows how many people take the treatment and it doesn't save them from death because statistically they wouldn't have died anyway. Only one person out of their particular population group is saved. It only saves the one out of whatever-the-number-is.
A study in the Journal of Epidemiology was funded by four drug companies who sell flu shots: Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, and MedImmune. The study gave a number to treat for flu vaccinations in the elderly.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/170/5/650.full
"The corresponding “number needed to treat” was 4,000; in other words, 1 death was prevented for every 4,000 elderly people vaccinated."
So those stats say that 3,999 out of those 4,000 elderly patients who got a flu shot would not have died anyway if they didn't get the vaccine. It doesn't help the 3,999; it only saved the one.
It's a gamble.
A study in the Journal of Epidemiology was funded by four drug companies who sell flu shots: Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, and MedImmune. The study gave a number to treat for flu vaccinations in the elderly.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/170/5/650.full
"The corresponding “number needed to treat” was 4,000; in other words, 1 death was prevented for every 4,000 elderly people vaccinated."
So those stats say that 3,999 out of those 4,000 elderly patients who got a flu shot would not have died anyway if they didn't get the vaccine. It doesn't help the 3,999; it only saved the one.
It's a gamble.
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