Each of two drugs, S and T, greatly reduces the effects of potentially fatal heart attacks if given as soon as possible after the attack begins, but Support a trial has shown that use of drug T instead of drug S would prevent death in one additional case out of 120. ████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ████ █ █████ ██████ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██ ███ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ ████ █ ██ █████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ████████
The author concludes that society is presented with a decision about whether or not to pay “the $240,000 it would cost to use drug T in order to save one additional patient.”
This is based on the following:
Both S and T are drugs that greatly reduce the chances of death following a heart attack if they are given as soon as possible after the heart attack begins. Trials have shown that using T instead of S would prevent 1 more additional case of death out of 120 uses. But T is costs $2,000 more per treatment than S.
Where does the author get the $240,000 figure in her conclusion? She must be thinking that the $2,000 excess cost of using T over S would be multiplied 120 times. She’s thinking that in order to get the extra 1 death prevented per 120 cases, we’d have to use drug T in all of those 120 cases. But that assumes we can’t identify ahead of time which cases in which to use drug T, and which cases in which to use drug S.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ███████
Drug S has ███████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██
Not necessary, because even if S and T have the exact same side effects, there’s still reason to think we’re faced with the choice of spending $240,000 to save one life. The author’s reasoning doesn’t depend on any side effects of S or T.
Drug T is ████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ███ ██████ ███████████ ██████
Not necessary, because the timeline of each drug’s invention and the costs of developing each drug have nothing to do with the author’s reasoning. The author’s reasoning is based on math — she thinks we need to multiply $2,000 by 120 in order to get the additional protection of using drug T.
After a heart ███████ ████ █ ███████ ██████████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ █ ████ ██ █████ ████ █ ██ ██ ██████ ██████████
Not necessary, because we don’t need to know exactly why drug T is more effective than S. Even if (C) were negated, we’d still know from a premise that drug T is more effective than S, and the author would argue we’re still faced with the potential choice of $240,000 to save one more life.
There is no ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███████████ ███ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████ ████ █ ████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ██
Necessary, because if there WERE a quick, practical, and relatively inepensive way of identifying for an individual case whether S will be just as good as T, then we don’t need to use drug T 120 times in order to get the additional protection provided by drug T. We might be able to use drug T far fewer times, and deploy it only when it is more likely to make a difference. So the author must assume this isn’t possible in order to reach the $240,000 figure.
Drug T works █████████████ ██████ ████ ████ ██
Not necessary, because we don’t need to know exactly why drug T is more effective than S. Even if (E) were negated, we’d still know from a premise that drug T is more effective than S, and the author would argue we’re still faced with the potential choice of $240,000 to save one more life.