P
Peter Moran
Guest
"Rod" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Peter,
>
> Much of the procedures you call AM, really deals with what Medical Science
> calls the "Placebo Effect".
Medical science recognises a placebo effect, but much of what happens when
patients get better on a certain treatment, whether conventional or
alternative is no "effect" at all, it is spontaneous. For example most
patients with acute back pain will be better in three weeks regardless of
any treatment, but people can still make a living from appearing to be
"treating" it.
>The "Placebo" ( I will please) is so strong that
> it is the basis of Double Blinded, Placebo controlled Trials and Study for
> Medicine.
You misunderstand. A placebo or sham treatment is used in controlled
trials to "control" for all possible extraneous influences, not because it
is "strong". Studies where a placebo group has been compared with a "no
treatment" group suggest that placebo "effects" are smaller than generally
thought, at least in the context of conrolled trials. They have no or
almost no effect on objective indices of illness but have some effect on
pain perception and the patients' s assessment of the severity of other
symptoms.
But any effects of placebo, and the level of patient satisfaction with
treatment, are not invested in a pill or procedure, they are a product of
the whole therapeutic environment. Alternative medicine is not constrained
by many of the inhibitions which prevent doctors from exploiting placebo
effects to the fullest. To that extent you are correct. It has, however
been well shown that patient satisfaction often bears little relationship to
treatment effectiveness in objective tests. They also have no effect on
cancer and most serious illnesses.
> So much so, that the FDA has reported - in order to gain approval for a
new
> drug "You don't have to run against the placebo, but you have to beat the
> placebo".
> Medical Science is still in an evolutionary state and the lack of
> understanding yet scientific use and acknowledgement of the "placebo
effect"
> is clear proof of this.
Medical science is always evolving. There is also a lot of tension in
medicine at the moment as to whether it can ethically exploit placebo
effects more fully, as with Andrew Weil's "integrative medicine".. Can we
go back to more innocent times? Fifty to sixty years ago the use of
placebos was common and explicit within medicine, but most doctors I talk to
feel that deceiving patients is wrong, and that better attention to and
communication with patients will achieve similar outcomes . We also come
up against informed consent issues that don't bother AM.
Peter Moran
news:[email protected]...
> Peter,
>
> Much of the procedures you call AM, really deals with what Medical Science
> calls the "Placebo Effect".
Medical science recognises a placebo effect, but much of what happens when
patients get better on a certain treatment, whether conventional or
alternative is no "effect" at all, it is spontaneous. For example most
patients with acute back pain will be better in three weeks regardless of
any treatment, but people can still make a living from appearing to be
"treating" it.
>The "Placebo" ( I will please) is so strong that
> it is the basis of Double Blinded, Placebo controlled Trials and Study for
> Medicine.
You misunderstand. A placebo or sham treatment is used in controlled
trials to "control" for all possible extraneous influences, not because it
is "strong". Studies where a placebo group has been compared with a "no
treatment" group suggest that placebo "effects" are smaller than generally
thought, at least in the context of conrolled trials. They have no or
almost no effect on objective indices of illness but have some effect on
pain perception and the patients' s assessment of the severity of other
symptoms.
But any effects of placebo, and the level of patient satisfaction with
treatment, are not invested in a pill or procedure, they are a product of
the whole therapeutic environment. Alternative medicine is not constrained
by many of the inhibitions which prevent doctors from exploiting placebo
effects to the fullest. To that extent you are correct. It has, however
been well shown that patient satisfaction often bears little relationship to
treatment effectiveness in objective tests. They also have no effect on
cancer and most serious illnesses.
> So much so, that the FDA has reported - in order to gain approval for a
new
> drug "You don't have to run against the placebo, but you have to beat the
> placebo".
> Medical Science is still in an evolutionary state and the lack of
> understanding yet scientific use and acknowledgement of the "placebo
effect"
> is clear proof of this.
Medical science is always evolving. There is also a lot of tension in
medicine at the moment as to whether it can ethically exploit placebo
effects more fully, as with Andrew Weil's "integrative medicine".. Can we
go back to more innocent times? Fifty to sixty years ago the use of
placebos was common and explicit within medicine, but most doctors I talk to
feel that deceiving patients is wrong, and that better attention to and
communication with patients will achieve similar outcomes . We also come
up against informed consent issues that don't bother AM.
Peter Moran
