‘Anecdotal’

Federal investigators recently reported a number of deaths among Medicare patients prematurely released from the hospital. Carolyn K. Davis, head of the government’s Health Care Financing Administration, dismisses this information as “anecdotal.” Translated into English, this means that no rigorous double-blind study was done.

I assume what would be needed to satisfy Davis is to divide the elderly patients into experimental and control groups, sending the people in the experimental group home prematurely, and then doing a body count.

ANITA M. WINCELBERG

Beverly Hills