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Comment by oh_my_goodness | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately in this particular case people die about 6 months later, not 5 years. See the article.

This is just a failure of understanding. This particular advancement is part of a decades long slog which taken together allows a substantial number of people to live meaningful additional durations every single year. 6 months average by itself means that John got another 3 years even if Jane only got 3 more days.

If I pulled one person out of a burning building it would be newsworthy. Doctors are and have been pulling train loads every day.

I support doctors. They're doing great work. I understand that in today's US I probably should have said that explicitly, as many Americans seem to have joined the side of the cancer, viruses, etc., and now oppose doctors (or even blame doctors for the diseases). I'm not one of those irrational people.

I agree that 6 extra months (on average) means some patients get much more time than that. I agree that a statistically significant improvement on the survival rate for this terrible cancer is a very promising result longer term.

My disagreement was much narrower than that. I disagree that 6 extra months is equivalent to 5 extra years. I disagree that people living an extra 6 months on average is equivalent to one person living 3 extra years and one person living 3 extra days. I think 3 days and 3 years average out to about 1.5 years, not to 6 months.

Think of me as a living fossil who takes it for granted that everyone appreciates how much medicine improves our lives.

it's unfortunate that they live an extra 6 months???

In my comment I pointed out that "5 years" was a bit of an exaggeration compared to the results in the article (6 months). That seemed unfortunate to me. To me 5 years seems much better than 6 months.

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