The study demonstrated that these medicines are effective, but that doctors and patients are looking for more. The medicines didn't completely alleviate symptoms or enable the majority of the patients to experience a complete recovery.

[Doctors and the study’s authors suspect that when the Red Sox are in the playoffs, patients who can defer an ER visit will do so.] The heart attacks, the strokes, they will come no matter what’s going on, ... The patient with pneumonia, the patient with an asthma attack will say, ‘ Maybe I can ride this out at home. ’

Probably the biggest surprise of all was that the older medication produced about as good an effect as the newer medications, three of them anyway, and did not produce neurological side effects at greater rates than any of the other drugs,

what works for one person may not work for another.

These treatments are effective--there's no doubt about that. But the glass is only half full.

The message is the glass is half full, ... The drugs work but they are not satisfactory to many patients, and three-quarters of the people in our study voted with their feet and discontinued the drugs.