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In the following slides the
presentation follows the same graphic display. The filled circle
presents the point estimate of protection and 95% confidence intervals are
shown as the horizontal line. Observations to the right of the
vertical line indicate protection, to the left harm, and overlapping
indicates no statistical proof for either protection or harm. The
scale for protection is shown on a logarithmic scale to reflect that these
are relative measures. Five prospective
clinical trials in the pre-chemotherapy era have studied the protective
efficacy of BCG in the prevention of death from tuberculosis. The
point estimates for four of the trials are 80 per cent and more, but the
95% confidence intervals overlap zero in three of the five studies.
These studies were done in early years when statistical considerations
were not accorded the priority as they do nowadays (all the confidence
intervals were calculated retrospectively from the data).
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