Benefits Outweigh The Risks Quotes

Research consistently shows that the risks to health outweigh the benefits of drinking alcohol. My argument is that the benefits to my mental health justify the risks.

the fact that so many tech executives limit their own kids’ exposure suggests that they don’t think the benefits always outweigh the risks – to the point that they feel the need to protect their families from the devices that they create. It’s the Silicon Valley version of the drug dealer’s adage: “Never get high on your own supply.

One day, Matthew, the little boy with the brain tumor who had charmed the ward a few years back, was readmitted. His hypothalamus had, in fact, been slightly damaged during the operation to remove his tumor; the adorable eight-year-old was now a twelve-year-old monster. He never stopped eating; he threw violent fits. His mother’s arms were scarred with purple scratches. Eventually Matthew was institutionalized: he had become a demon, summoned by one millimeter of damage. For every surgery, a family and a surgeon decide together that the benefits outweigh the risks, but this was still heartbreaking. No one wanted to think about what Matthew would be like as a three-hundred-pound twenty-year-old.

What Happened to Male Birth Control? A 2016 trial of injectable male contraceptive was suspended after determining that the risks to men’s health outweighed the benefits. What brought researchers to that conclusion? Out of 320 men, 20 said they couldn’t tolerate the side effects, which included pain at the injection site, acne, and depression. Yes, based on 20 men saying they were uncomfortable with these symptoms, researchers discontinued the

There is one thing I can say for sure about fear, and that is this: until you face it, it will always be out there standing in your way, preventing you from reaching your full potential. It is only when you build up the courage to face it, when you finally decide the benefits outweigh the regrets, when you are willing to put one foot in front of the other, that you will take the risk and learn the one thing I now know for sure: that it too shall pass.

Body dysmorphic disorder wedges itself between the sufferer’s desperation to connect and the fear that they might be rejected while attempting to do so. This serves the purpose of preventing rejection; if one is constantly dismissing oneself it becomes much more difficult to be rejected by another human being. For many highly sensitive body dysmorphic disorder patients, rejection is experienced as the ultimate proof that something must be inherently defective about them. For this to be the case is often interpreted as absolute confirmation that they can never be loved. Taking the risk of possible rejection might mean experiencing these dire consequences, and to most, the benefits do not out-weigh the consequences. Thus body dysmorphic disorder exists in the space of the relational ambivalence, completely changing the focus from fears of intimacy and fundamental feelings of inadequacy to excessive attention towards perceptible physical features.

In April, Dr. Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko, M.D., an upstate New York physician and early HCQ adopter, reproduced Dr. Didier Raoult’s “startling successes” by dramatically reducing expected mortalities among 800 patients Zelenko treated with the HCQ cocktail.29 By late April of 2020, US doctors were widely prescribing HCQ to patients and family members, reporting outstanding results, and taking it themselves prophylactically. In May 2020, Dr. Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D. published the most comprehensive study, to date, on HCQ’s efficacy against COVID. Risch is Yale University’s super-eminent Professor of Epidemiology, an illustrious world authority on the analysis of aggregate clinical data. Dr. Risch concluded that evidence is unequivocal for early and safe use of the HCQ cocktail. Dr. Risch published his work—a meta-analysis reviewing five outpatient studies—in affiliation with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the American Journal of Epidemiology, under the urgent title, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to Pandemic Crisis.”30 He further demonstrated, with specificity, how HCQ’s critics—largely funded by Bill Gates and Dr. Tony Fauci31—had misinterpreted, misstated, and misreported negative results by employing faulty protocols, most of which showed HCQ efficacy administered without zinc and Zithromax which were known to be helpful. But their main trick for ensuring the protocols failed was to wait until late in the disease process before administering HCQ—when it is known to be ineffective. Dr. Risch noted that evidence against HCQ used late in the course of the disease is irrelevant. While acknowledging that Dr. Didier Raoult’s powerful French studies favoring HCQ efficacy were not randomized, Risch argued that the results were, nevertheless, so stunning as to far outweigh that deficit: “The first study of HCQ + AZ [ . . . ] showed a 50-fold benefit of HCQ + AZ vs. standard of care . . . This is such an enormous difference that it cannot be ignored despite lack of randomization.”32 Risch has pointed out that the supposed need for randomized placebo-controlled trials is a shibboleth. In 2014 the Cochrane Collaboration proved in a landmark meta-analysis of 10,000 studies, that observational studies of the kind produced by Didier Raoult are equal

If we take God’s Word seriously, we should avoid debt when possible. In those rare cases where we go into debt, we should make every effort to get out as soon as we can. We should never undertake debt without prayerful consideration and wise counsel. Our questions should be, Why go into debt? Is the risk called for? Will the benefits of becoming servants to the lender really outweigh the costs? What should we ask ourselves before going into debt? Before we incur debt, we should ask ourselves some basic spiritual questions: Is the fact that I don’t have enough resources to pay cash for something God’s way of telling me it isn’t his will for me to buy it? Or is it possible that this thing may have been God’s will but poor choices put me in a position where I can’t afford to buy it? Wouldn’t I do better to learn God’s lesson by foregoing it until—by his provision and my diligence—I save enough money to buy it? What I would call the “debt mentality” is a distorted perspective that involves invalid assumptions: • We need more than God has given us. • God doesn’t know best what our needs are. • God has failed to provide for our needs, forcing us to take matters into our own hands. • If God doesn’t come through the way we think he should, we can find another way. • Just because today’s income is sufficient to make our debt payments, tomorrow’s will be too (i.e., our circumstances won’t change). Those with convictions against borrowing will normally find ways to avoid it. Those without a firm conviction against going into debt will inevitably find the “need” to borrow. The best credit risks are those who won’t borrow in the first place. The more you’re inclined to go into debt, the more probable it is that you shouldn’t. Ask yourself, “Is the money I’ll be obligated to repay worth the value I’ll receive by getting the money or possessions now? When it comes time for me to repay my debt, what new needs will I have that my debt will keep me from meeting? Or what new wants will I have that will tempt me to go further into debt?” Consider these statements of God’s Word: • “True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content” (1 Timothy 6:6-8). • “Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). • “My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them, for they will refresh your soul. They are like jewels on a necklace. They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. You can go to bed without fear; you will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap” (Proverbs 3:21-26). • “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

The anticipated benefit must always outweigh the potential risk when an intervention is to be used. ...Proceeding with any intervention may produce undesirable results. Likewise, failing to intervene when it is called for can have dire consequences.

Nature Favors Risk Takers Starting something new means taking a risk. But in our society, the word "risk" has assumed mostly negative connotations. When someone tells us "that's risky," most of us have a visceral, fearful reaction. But Mother Nature seems to have built a loophole into our sense of well-being, because embedded somewhere within the human genetic makeup is an inclination to take risks. Of course, in order for evolution and natural selection to favor risk-taking as a behavior there has to be a benefit, and that benefit has to outweigh the outcome of doing nothing. Many examples from the animal kingdom support this hypothesis. According to research by Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin, who was trying to understand a continuum of risk-taking, fish willing to take risks were likely to mate better.11 Guppies, for example, engage in what is known as predator inspection behavior. Predator inspection is akin to guard duty. A few fish break away from the group and slowly approach the predator to obtain information. In taking risks in the presence of a predator, a guppy is more likely to get eaten, but a male guppy that takes this risk is more attractive as a mate to females.12 The bolder guppies are also better at learning.

But after Purdue released the reformulated version of OxyContin in 2010, as the patent on the original formulation was set to expire, the company made an audacious about-face. Purdue filed papers with the FDA, asking the agency to refuse to accept generic versions of the original formulation of OxyContin—the version the company had been selling all these years—on grounds that it was unsafe. The company said that it was voluntarily withdrawing the original formulation from the market for reasons “of safety.” On the very day that the patent for the original formulation was set to expire, the FDA, ever obliging, declared that the benefits of the old version of OxyContin “no longer outweigh” the risks.

Rydahl et al (2019) also set out to look more thoughtfully at which studies should be included in a meta-analysis. They focused on recent studies (within the past 20 years) which compared healthy (or low risk) women having induction at 41 and 42 weeks. Again, they found no difference in perinatal mortality, morbidity and caesarean section rates. “Induction prior to post-term was associated with few beneficial outcomes and several adverse outcomes. This draws attention to possible iatrogenic effects affecting large numbers of low-risk women in contemporary maternity care. According to the World Health Organization, expected benefits from a medical intervention must outweigh potential harms. Hence, our results do not support the widespread use of routine induction prior to post-term (41+0–6 gestational weeks).” (Rydahl et al 2019: 170).

Although eating USDA organic soy will eliminate the BT toxin issue, soy still produces too much estrogen in your body. There is no health benefit that outweighs the risk of this harmful food.

Research consistently shows that the risks to health outweigh the benefits of drinking alcohol. My argument is that the benefits to my mental health justify the risks. Alcohol seems to both calm me down and elevate my mood, a paradoxical but pleasant combination.

Full of clear liquid. “Calling me names isn’t going to stop me from using the Horn.” Hunt’s breath sawed through his chest. Micah advanced on her. “The Horn’s remnants are now embedded in your flesh. When I inject you with synth, the healing properties in it will target and fix whatever it finds to be broken. And the Horn will again be whole. Ready for me to learn if it works at last.” “You’d risk opening a portal to another fucking world in the middle of Crescent City,” she spat, inching farther away, “just to learn if it works?” “If I am correct, the benefits shall far outweigh any casualties,” Micah answered mildly as a bead of liquid gleamed on the syringe’s tip. “Too bad you will not survive the synth’s side effects in order to see for yourself.

Professor David Welch explains that people who don’t take the time for self-reflection tend to make bad decisions because they do not understand their own position. He encourages readers to ask themselves specific questions like: “Will the outcome of my decision move me closer to what I truly want? Does the benefit outweigh the cost? Is the level of risk worth the reward? How committed am I to this change?

There are many examples of how Medicine 2.0 gets risk wrong, but one of the most egregious has to do with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for postmenopausal women, long entrenched as standard practice before the results of the Women’s Health Initiative Study (WHI) were published in 2002. This large clinical trial, involving thousands of older women, compared a multitude of health outcomes in women taking HRT versus those who did not take it. The study reported a 24 percent relative increase in the risk of breast cancer among a subset of women taking HRT, and headlines all over the world condemned HRT as a dangerous, cancer-causing therapy. All of a sudden, on the basis of this one study, hormone replacement treatment became virtually taboo. This reported 24 percent risk increase sounded scary indeed. But nobody seemed to care that the absolute risk increase of breast cancer for women in the study remained minuscule. Roughly five out of every one thousand women in the HRT group developed breast cancer, versus four out of every one thousand in the control group, who received no hormones. The absolute risk increase was just 0.1 percentage point. HRT was linked to, potentially, one additional case of breast cancer in every thousand patients. Yet this tiny increase in absolute risk was deemed to outweigh any benefits, meaning menopausal women would potentially be subject to hot flashes and night sweats, as well as loss of bone density and muscle mass, and other unpleasant symptoms

In fact for most people except those that are very ill, the risks outweigh the benefits. Except that the long-term medical risks are hidden; they will play out in the long run, whereas the legal risk is immediate. This is no different from the Bob Rubin risk-transfer trade, of delaying risks and making them look invisible.

All drugs have a risk-benefit profile, and the usual thought within medicine is that a drug should provide a benefit that outweighs the risks. A drug that curbs psychotic symptoms clearly provides a marked benefit, and that was why antipsychotics could be viewed as helpful even though the list of negatives with these drugs was a long one. Thorazine and other first-generation neuroleptics caused Parkinsonian symptoms and extraordinarily painful muscle spasms. Patients regularly complained that the drugs turned them into emotional “zombies.” In 1972, researchers concluded that neuroleptics “impaired learning.”30 Others reported that even if medicated patients stayed out of the hospital, they seemed totally unmotivated and socially disengaged. Many lived in “virtual solitude” in group homes, spending most of the time “staring vacantly at television,” wrote one investigator.31 None of this told of medicated schizophrenia patients faring well, and here was the quandary that psychiatry now faced: If the drugs increased relapse rates over the long term, then where was the benefit? This question was made all the more pressing by the fact that many patients maintained on the drugs were developing tardive dyskinesia (TD), a gross motor dysfunction that remained even after the drugs were withdrawn, evidence of permanent brain damage. All of this required psychiatry to recalculate the risks and benefits of antipsychotics, and in 1977 Jonathan Cole did so in an article provocatively titled “Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?” He reviewed all of the long-term harm the drugs could cause and observed that studies had shown that at least 50 percent of all schizophrenia patients could fare well without the drugs. There was only one moral thing for psychiatry to do: “Every schizophrenic outpatient maintained on antipsychotic medication should have the benefit of an adequate trial without drugs.” This, he explained, would save many “from the dangers of tardive dyskinesia as well as the financial and social burdens of prolonged drug therapy.”32

In fact for most people except those that are very ill, the risks outweigh the benefits.

I made clear that I thought the benefits of our securities purchases had so far outweighed the risks.

To be very clear, I am not anti-medication. On the contrary, I desperately want there to be a drug that helps people obtain truly naturalistic sleep. Many of the drug company scientists who create sleeping medicines do so with nothing but good intent and an honest desire to help those for whom sleep is problematic. I know, because I have met many of them in my career. And as a researcher, I am keen to help science explore new medications in carefully controlled, independent studies. If such a drug—one with sound scientific data demonstrating benefits that far outweigh any health risks—is ultimately developed, I would support it. It is simply that no such medication currently exists.

Meanwhile, journalists and traders speculated feverishly on when “tapering” would begin. That was the term the press had affixed to a strategy that involved gradual reductions in our securities purchases rather than a sudden stop. Though I had used it, I didn’t particularly like it, and I tried to encourage others on the FOMC to use alternatives. “Tapering” implied that, once we had begun slowing purchases, we would reduce them along a predetermined glide path. Instead, I wanted to convey that the pace of purchases could vary, depending on the speed of progress toward our labor market objective and on whether the risks of the purchases were starting to outweigh the benefits. As usual, though, I had little influence on the terminology the press chose to use.