The economics of instant medical news

Abstract A western rancher, suffering from malignant melanoma, declined surgical therapy and treated himself with "chaparral tea" brewed from the root of the desert creosote bush. The clinical cure that followed was reported in newspapers throughout the world. Patient referral patterns between neighboring university medical centers were considerably affected. The foregoing observation was used in conjunction with Poor's Law and the Odd-Lot Principle to generate what we believe to be a new law of economics: "The public impact of instant medical reporting is related inversely to the intrinsic merit of the observation." Application of the law to short sales on the major stock exchanges has been rewarding. We conclude that the unreliability of instant medical news is so reliable that large profits may be made by betting against the value of medical breakthroughs reported in the lay press. (N Engl J Med 290:439–442, 1974)