"The Kaplan-Meier estimator may not sound as if it is terribly important to most people’s lives. But if you have had a successful treatment for, say, cancer, or for diabetes, or for HIV/AIDS, or for heart disease, or for any one of dozens of other diseases or medical conditions, at any time over roughly the last fifty years, it may be that you owe your life to it and to one of the men who devised it. The statistician Paul Meier died this week. He was 87. It is estimated that his work and his advocacy in medical statistics have been responsible for saving millions of lives." - Amit Patel from Bookmarklet