Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Noble  The placebo effect is almost completely limited to subjective measures. As soon as you start looking at objective measures like survival the placebo effect shrinks to barely significant or disappears completely. This is why CAM proponents focus on chronic illnesses and psychosomatic complaints. These are exactly the complaints where a large placebo effect is seen.
Scientists do know how to use the placebo effect. Simply tell the patients they are taking some really expensive medicine and they'll report improvements on a variety of subjective measures. You aren't going to cure their cancer but they might report less pain while they die. |
OK - this is more a plea for some facts/explanation - so please treat it seriously.
Why is it that just about every medical trial uses controls? Why can't you just say cancer X has 58% fatality with current best treatment, so lets try new compound Y and determine if we can do better. There have been huge rows in the USA particularly because potential AIDS drugs are not just tried on people, they go through double blind trials, so some people don't get treated - again, if the placebo effect is relatively unimportant, why is research on fatal diseases done that way?
Do you have some actual numbers or references?
Maybe it would be worth having a separate thread just to discuss placebo effects, because to me they are central - they offer copious evidence that there are 'alternative' ways to cure, and make alternative therapies far more plausible.
David