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How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals

Researchers, clinicians, and patients have good reasons for wanting answers to causal questions of disease and therapeutic intervention. This paper uses microbiologist Robert Koch’s pioneering work and famous postulates to extrapolate a logical sequence of evidence for confirming the causes of disea...

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Autor principal: Evans, David W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9427919/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35792996
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-022-10096-x
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author Evans, David W.
author_facet Evans, David W.
author_sort Evans, David W.
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description Researchers, clinicians, and patients have good reasons for wanting answers to causal questions of disease and therapeutic intervention. This paper uses microbiologist Robert Koch’s pioneering work and famous postulates to extrapolate a logical sequence of evidence for confirming the causes of disease: association between individuals with and without a disease; isolation of causal agents; and the creation of a counterfactual (demonstrating that an agent is sufficient to reproduce the disease anew). This paper formally introduces counter-counterfactuals, which appear to have been used, perhaps intuitively, since the time of Koch and possibly earlier. An argument is presented that counter-counterfactuals (disease-preventers) are a useful tool for identifying necessary causes of disease, and sometimes must be used in place of isolation which is not always possible. In addition, a logical sequence of causal evidence for a therapeutic intervention is presented: creating a counterfactual (demonstrating that the intervention is sufficient to change the natural course of a disease), comparisons between subjects in receipt of treatment versus those who are not (typically within a randomised controlled trial, which can quantify effects of intervention), and counter-counterfactuals (treatment-preventers, which can identify the intervention’s mechanisms of action).
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spelling pubmed-94279192022-09-01 How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals Evans, David W. Med Health Care Philos Scientific Contribution Researchers, clinicians, and patients have good reasons for wanting answers to causal questions of disease and therapeutic intervention. This paper uses microbiologist Robert Koch’s pioneering work and famous postulates to extrapolate a logical sequence of evidence for confirming the causes of disease: association between individuals with and without a disease; isolation of causal agents; and the creation of a counterfactual (demonstrating that an agent is sufficient to reproduce the disease anew). This paper formally introduces counter-counterfactuals, which appear to have been used, perhaps intuitively, since the time of Koch and possibly earlier. An argument is presented that counter-counterfactuals (disease-preventers) are a useful tool for identifying necessary causes of disease, and sometimes must be used in place of isolation which is not always possible. In addition, a logical sequence of causal evidence for a therapeutic intervention is presented: creating a counterfactual (demonstrating that the intervention is sufficient to change the natural course of a disease), comparisons between subjects in receipt of treatment versus those who are not (typically within a randomised controlled trial, which can quantify effects of intervention), and counter-counterfactuals (treatment-preventers, which can identify the intervention’s mechanisms of action). Springer Netherlands 2022-07-06 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9427919/ /pubmed/35792996 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-022-10096-x Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Scientific Contribution
Evans, David W.
How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
title How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
title_full How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
title_fullStr How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
title_full_unstemmed How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
title_short How to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from Koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
title_sort how to gain evidence for causation in disease and therapeutic intervention: from koch’s postulates to counter-counterfactuals
topic Scientific Contribution
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9427919/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35792996
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-022-10096-x
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