PrepTest 101, Section 3, Question 6
Asthmagon was long considered the most effective of(60 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- AIn Rhiago, where(21 more words not shown)
- BMany of the(15 more words not shown)
- CDespite the growing(14 more words not shown)
- DAmong the patients(15 more words not shown)
- EAsthmagon increases the(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Serious side effects matter. But are they enough to justify taking the drug away from everyone?
The finding doesn't by itself erase asthmagon's effectiveness against asthma. A drug could be very effective at its intended job and still have serious drawbacks. We need to weigh those drawbacks against what patients would lose if the drug were banned.
Imagine a patient with life-threatening asthma for whom this is the only effective treatment. Even a serious side effect might be preferable to going without treatment. That is a hypothetical way the proposed ban could be a mistake, not something the passage tells us about any particular patient. It shows why “some patients suffered serious side effects” doesn't, by itself, settle what to do about the entire drug.
What we’re looking for
For a weakener, my first thought is evidence that the benefit outweighs the risk: perhaps the treatment is important enough that patients still have a good reason to take it. We don't need to pretend the side effects never happened. We need a reason they don't justify the broad ban the doctors propose.
Working the answers
- A
More asthma deaths doesn't tell us what asthmagon did to the risk of dying. There could have been more asthma patients, for example, so the total deaths could increase even while treatment helped some of them. We aren't given the relevant comparison or told how many of those who died took this drug. The rising count doesn't establish why banning asthmagon would be a mistake.
- B
Patients being new to this class of drugs doesn't tell us whether the side effects are outweighed by benefits, limited to a particular risk group, or otherwise a poor reason for a ban. We would need a connection between their lack of previous use and the case against prohibiting this treatment.
- C
Continued prescribing tells us what some physicians do, not why the side-effect evidence is a bad basis for a ban. They might have good reasons, but C doesn't provide them. We shouldn't supply the missing medical judgment simply because their behavior favors continuing to use the drug.
- DCorrect
This takes a different route from my benefit-versus-risk prediction. The observed side effects were confined to patients with very high cholesterol. That gives us a reason to question extending the concern to all patients and banning the drug entirely; a more limited response might address the risk the study found.
Be careful about the conclusion we draw from D. It doesn't prove that cholesterol alone caused the side effects, that every person with high cholesterol had them, or that everyone else is guaranteed to be safe. Its value is narrower: the study's troubling result is associated with an identifiable subgroup, which weakens the case for a blanket ban.
- E
This adds another serious problem with the drug: in some people it worsens the attacks it is meant to alleviate. That gives the proposed ban more support. It doesn't provide a reason to doubt the case for banning it.
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