ArticleJournal of bioethical inquiry2025
Noninferiority and Efficiency/Revenue Facilitation (NERF) Endpoints : Shifting Grounds of Argument in Health AI Interventional Studies.
Article in Journal of bioethical inquiry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
This article investigates ethical hazards associated with argumentative shifts following the emergence of combined non-inferiority and efficiency/revenue facilitation (NERF) endpoints, with particular attention to research on artificial intelligence (AI) in health and medicine. The study presented here adopts a Toulmin argumentative analysis approach to investigate the dominant persuasive logics of twenty-three health AI trials evaluating NERF endpoints. In so doing, the article demonstrates how the argumentative logics of NERF trial reports shifts away from health outcomes as the putative evidence base for adopting novel interventions toward an argumentative model that prioritizes economic benefits over patient benefits. Ultimately, the article argues that new logic of NERF endpoints is consistent with and risks accelerating the harms to patient care that arise from increased financialization of the healthcare sector. If the use of NERF endpoints and attendant logics continue to grow unchecked, they could result in significant harms to patient health and well-being.
Indexed as
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41252119What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.