An article in the New York Times on January 17, 1980 reported on the results of an experiment that compared an existing treatment drug (prochloroperazine) with using THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) for combating nausea in patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Patients being treated in a cancer clinic were divided at random into two groups which were then assigned to one of the two drugs (so they did a randomized, double-blind, comparative experiment). Table 6.15 shows how many patients in each group found the treatment to be effective or not effective.  

Table 6.15

(a) Use these results to test whether the proportion of patients helped by THC is significantly higher (no pun intended) than the proportion helped by prochloroperazine. Use a 1% significance level since we would require very strong evidence to switch to THC in this case.
(b) Why is it important that these data come from a well-designed experiment?

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Not Effective Treatment Sample Size Effective THC 79 36 43 62 Prochloroperazine 78 16