The title confused me for most of the article because I assumed they were saying that getting an MRI was equivalently dangerous to a year of smoking.

> So the same effort you would expend to get out of those activities on account of their risk, the same effort you should be willing to expend to get a full-body mri.

"get out of those activities"

> So the same effort you would expend to get out of those activities [such as one year of smoking] on account of their risk, the same effort you should be willing to expend to get a full-body mri

That's the conclusion of the article, which I didn't immediately understand from the title. I read "earns" as a negative reward, not a positive one.

This doesn't seem to account for the outcome that someone receives testing and treatment for a problem found by the MRI, and is injured in the process, despite the fact that non-treatment would have been harmless; a not-uncommon outcome in the real world.

> This doesn’t tell me a whole lot, because my intuition for QALYs is weak. How strongly should I prefer an intervention with a net benefit of 0.025 QALYs over other things I might do with my time? No idea!

> However! When marketing the effect of global health interventions, a count of 27 qalys is typically considered “a life saved”. A life also happens to be a million micromorts, and I have a much better intuition for micromorts!

This came across as unintentionally funny to me. It goes from making the joke that one obscure unit of measure is inscrutable to saying, don't worry, because we can put it in another equally obscure unit of measure!

Is the author confusing MRI with a CAT scan? or is there a health risk associated with high flux magnetic fields that I am unfamiliar with.

update: The article is second order analysis. need to read it's linked article to understand it is more about the costs(including psychological) of questionable tests and not a direct health risk of MRI devices.

I like the linked Scott Alexander post, but I also genuinely wonder what is the rate of change on these tests? The linked test Prenuvo has competition from Ezra + Function and others. It this drops from $2k to $500 over time, it makes it look considerably better. The more we can use different testing modalities, we should be able to reduce false positives in each modality.

I will say, that for cancer specifically, tests like Galleri seem better, but as that cost comes down I could see in 5-10 years an annual $500 scan that offers a full body scan of some kind, plus comprehensive bloodwork including blood cancer screening, and the type of thing that could be done annually by many in the US.

Ok, what should I say to my doctor to order the full-body MRI scan? (Sorry I don't have an MRI machine at home).

What is the 'QALY' value of the peace of mind coming from a clean bill of health?

2 base jumps? are those really that dangerous?

dogshit title.

Deleted.

I am surprised that spending a day on the Ukraine front is equivalent to _only_ a year of smoking. That seems to clash either the average life expectancy I read about Russians on the front-line (being measured in hours)