Fred Gehm <fred.x.gehm@HOUSEHOLD.COM> wrote in message news:OF9E12CB94.945F254E-ON86256B1E.004DE9BB@household.com... > Before you spend to much time on this you should know why SAS is so popular > with drug companies. The FDA will let you make arithmetic errors and slap > your wrists if you it catches you. You lose credibility and have to do the > work over again, but they don't rake you over the coals. But if you can't > figure out how you got some result you are in very serious trouble. Think > IRS only much worse. With SAS someone can read your code 10 years later > and know what you have done. With Excel you won't be able to figure it out > a year from now. No offense.

None taken. So when the FDA look at your code 10 years later and try to call one of those "standard" reporting macros from 10 years ago, then will it work? Will it even be there, archived away with the submission and all working? I doubt it.

> Roland To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > <roland.rashleigh-berry cc: > @VIRGIN.NET> Subject: Clinical trials NOT using SAS? > Sent by: "SAS(r) > Discussion" > <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > > > > 12/10/2001 05:23 AM > Please respond to > Roland > > > > > > Has anyone here reported on a Clinical trial NOT using SAS? Or can someone > point me to a web page where it is documented as being such? I am thinking > of alternatives to SAS at the moment. More specifically, I am wondering > whether it could all be done from a PC using Microsoft <cough, spit!> > software. I have reasons for thinking along this direction, not least of > which that I have plenty of spare time on my hands, no SAS, and a PC with > Access, Excel and soon VB6 on it. Also there has been an interest in very > processor intensive work recently such as monte-carlo techniques and > bootstrapping which can hog the central processors on Unix servers so it > would perhaps be better to run them on PC's. That being the case then it > would seem a good idea to fully explore the software "native" to those PC's > (i.e. Microsoft products) rather than adding SAS to it. > > I have heard that you can get extra add-ons for Excel that can do a lot of > stats calculations for you. Also, when it comes to tabular reporting, SAS > is > very weak when it comes to using proportional fonts (though maybe it is > better with version 8). Also graphs and charts have always been pig ugly in > SAS. But anyhow, is it feasible to do all the work using Microsoft software > strung together with VB6 plus a few add-ons? > > But then I suppose it would be off-topic to this newsgroup to discuss it > here.