Donald Berry Quotations

There does seem to be a statistical advantage, but the practical advantage is still an open question.

I'd do it again if I had to. We made it here all safely. That's the main thing. (Claudia and Joe) have been a blessing. I just wished they had lived a little bit closer.

Our biggest challenge is to convince the regulators that we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater by using a Bayesian approach. It is rigorous and we are not losing science by using it.

The American Cancer Society has it right. I do think mammograms save lives.

Using the Bayesian approach, it is natural to do continuous updating as information accrues. This characteristic makes it possible for us to build adaptive designs in clinical trials.

We don't know the answers for sure. There's still some uncertainty because we don't have perfect data.

We need to rethink how we design and conduct clinical trials in the United States. Our current system has served us well for the past 50 years, but the demands of 21st century medicine are beginning to put a strain on the current system, and we believe we have something to relieve that strain.

Doctors want to be able to design trials to look at multiple potential treatment combinations and use biomarkers to determine who is responding to what medication. At the end of the day, when they enroll the last patient in the study they want to be able to treat that patient optimally depending on the patient's disease characteristics. Using a Bayesian approach, the trial design exploits the results as the trial is ongoing and adapts based on these interim results. That kind of thing is an anathema in the standard approach.

This is the first time that a study does it right in asking the effects of screening separate from therapy.

This does solidify in my mind the case for screening,

Although less certain, screening indeed appears to be effective at lowering mortality.

The average woman can gain some comfort knowing that both these things that are going on are important.