Results for: placebo
Incorporating Placebos into Mainstream Medicine
Alternative medicine by definition is medicine that has not been shown to work any better than placebo. Patients think they are helped by alternative medicine. Placebos, by definition, do “please” patients. We would all like to please our patients, but we don’t want to lie to them. Is there a compromise? Is there a way we can ethically elicit the same placebo...
Placebo Therapies: Are They Ethical?
Is it ethical to overstate the efficacy of a treatment option, if it might lead to a patient’s enhanced experience of that treatment? Your response to this question may reveal the degree to which you favor Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Let me explain. As far as I can tell, no CAM treatment has been proven effective beyond placebo. (If you’re not...
On the dangers of using valid placebo controls in clinical trials of acupuncture
I don’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned this before on this blog, but there was a time when I was less skeptical of acupuncture than I am now. It’s true. Don’t get me wrong, though. I never for a minute considered that the whole rigamarole about “unblocking” or “redirecting” the flow of that mystical life force known as qi had anything to...
Do physicians really believe in placebos?
In a previous post, I argued that placebo is an artifact of certain clinical interactions, rather than a treatment that we can exploit. Apparently, there are a whole lot of doctors out there who don’t agree with me. Or are there? A recent study published in the British Medical Journal is getting a lot of enk (e-ink) in the blogosphere. As a...
Placebos in the news again
Towards the end of last week, I was contemplating what I would be writing about for Monday. No topic had quite floated my boat, but I hated to dip into the archive of topics I’ve written about before to update a post. After all, I like to be topical whenever possible. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear (yes, I know...
Is There a Placebo Effect for Animals?
One of the occasional arguments used in support of “alternative” approaches to human medicine is the observation that since “alternative” medicine is used (with anecdotal success) in animals, and animals don’t know anything about the treatment that they’re getting, then they must work a priori. Of course, the fallacy of such an observation is pretty obvious to anyone with a logical/skeptical frame...
The Placebo Myth
King Arthur: Now stand aside, worthy adversary. Black Knight: ‘Tis but a scratch. King Arthur: A scratch? Your arm’s off. Black Knight: No it isn’t. King Arthur: What’s that, then? Black Knight: [after a pause] I’ve had worse. King Arthur: You liar. Black Knight: Come on ya pansy.King Arthur: [after Arthur’s cut off both of the Black Knight’s arms] Look, you stupid...
Studying Placebo Effects
Measuring placebo effects (often misleadingly referred to as the placebo effect – singular) is a part of standard clinical trial design, because they need to be distinguished from the physiological effects of the treatment under study. Rarely, however, are placebo effects the actual target being measured, but such is the case with a new study published in the most recent edition of...
The Placebo Effect
Recently the Federal Trade Commission went after the makers of the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet for their claims that their device was a cure for chronic pain. Last week Seventh Circuit judge Frank Easterbrook handed down his opinion on the company’s appeal, writing that the company was guilty of fraud and ordering them to pay 16 million dollars in fines. One of the...
We finally learn from TACT2 what we should have known two decades ago: Chelation therapy doesn’t work for heart disease
At SBM, we've long argued that chelation therapy for heart disease is quackery. An abstract presented recently finally confirmed that. Why did it take so long?