[dhmallon]

Two patients can have identical knee x-rays/MRIs - loss of joint space and osteophyte formation etc. But one has pain and the other does not. Do they both have osteoarthritis? They clearly don't have the same dis-ease.

Patient don't care about having cartilage or bone sclerosis or subchondral cyst formation; they care about pain that stops them moving (which in turn can increase their weight further exacerbating the joint issues).

So, osteoarthritis is a problem in that it causes pain. If something specifically reduces osteoarthritic pain, I am okay with it saying it 'beats' the dis-ease.

[DataDive]

The issue that people have here is whether being a pain-killer merely masks the disease temporarily and leads to people ignoring the problem and hence aggravating the disease even more. Pain is usually a signal of a real and valid problem.

I am merely explaining what the issue at hand is - I am not saying that is what the proposed medicine does. Another way to say it, is the compound treating the symptom or the problem - or perhaps both.

Imagine you have a hernia that hurts and you take medicine that masks that pain, do you still have hernia?