BLIND TO BENEFITS

APPLYING the same reasoning which has seen the Medical Board of Queensland
carry off Dr Stuart Reece's patient files and terminate his treatment of
heroin addicts with naltrexone implants, all heart surgery should be stopped.

The increase in the death rate during and immediately after major heart
surgery far exceeds that for the general population of people with cardiac
problems.

Is it only in the case of naltrexone that the authorities seem inexplicably
blind to the net benefit of a temporary increase in risk to achieve a
substantial and ongoing reduction in the death rate?

Greg Grundy, Balmoral.