[Avodah] Fasting on YK

[David Riceman]

David Riceman wrote:
> Meir Shinnar wrote:
>   
>> Most obstetricians today would presumably (I am not an obstetrician)
>> argue that fasting poses some risks for all women.  As above, there is
>> statistical data on fasting increasing the delivery rate - as well as
>> mechanistic information to make this plausible.
>>   
>>     
> There are ways of testing whether the risk increases for everyone (e.g. 
> can one measure something correlated with miscarriages which actually 
> increases for everyone in a study) or for an unidentifiable 
> subpopulation.  Has anyone actually done this? If what you say is true, 
> of course, there would be ethical problems in performing such a study.
>   
On reflection I'm not sure I believe what I wrote (maybe the thing you 
measured affects health only in an unidentifiable subpopulation).  If, 
in fact, it is impossible to distinguish clinically between "a 
heightened level of risk for everyone" and "seriously increased risk for 
an unidentifiable subpopulation" would they nonetheless be halachically 
distinct?

David Riceman