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The NHS does this calculus routinely using Quality Adjusted Life Years. Treatments that get more are favoured which is also how NICE decides what drugs the NHS should offer. There's obviously some utilitarianism in the decision to use QALYs but to some (including me) it seems a reasonable proxy metric to maximise.

Ultimately a sacrifice must be chosen, but I am not sure a discussion about how that should be made is necessarily fit for HN (though I'd be interested in how you'd resolve your proposed scenario).



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