More generally, some people reckon that new cancer drugs offer small benefits at an exorbitant price.
"There are some small benefits," he added, "and these need to be weighed against the risks".
A fair response is that monetary policy may have small benefits, but it is still worth trying.
"There will be small benefits for a lot of people but big losses in certain sectors, and they'll fight".
In an effort to add to that feel-good factor, last week the finance minister, Jaswant Singh, announced some small benefits for the middle classes and for businesses.
Some of the corridors are a good idea, but others could cause great environmental harm and have surprisingly small benefits," he said.
Sarah Ludwig, director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, based in Manhattan, said the proposed settlement "appears to offer small benefits against the backdrop of abusive lending practices".
There were small benefits given to women who volunteered for this, such as the provision of cooking tools or free rations of groceries like oil or sugar at holidays.
The apparently real, but small, benefits from acupuncture in pain control led to Nice approving acupuncture for headaches and back pain – amid a chorus of grumbles from the sceptics.
Pakstaite says: "Only one third of visually impaired people are in paid employment so the rest of them have to survive on very small benefits and they can't really afford to be throwing food away willy-nilly.
By adding up all the small benefits, the researchers concluded that there was a slight benefit of screening, a statistically significant 15percentt decline in the death rate from breast cancer for women in their 40s.
