Results for: placebos
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...
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...
Dr. Vinay Prasad vs. a VAERS study finding more reports of vaccine injury in red states
Dr. Vinay Prasad attacks an epidemiological study published in JAMA Open Network reporting that people in red states are more likely to report vaccine injuries, claiming that a more rigorous study would "not be difficult," when he knows that it would be very difficult.
2024 Detox Trends To Watch (Out) For
Trends come and go but the popularity of detoxification and cleansing in January is eternal.
2023: The year that the evidence-based medicine (EBM) paradigm was weaponized against vaccines and public health
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been a very useful paradigm for assessing evidence in medicine. However, like any other framework, it can be misused, particularly when fundamentalist EBM methodolatry leads to its inappropriate application to questions for which it is ill-suited, a misuse that has been weaponized against public health during the pandemic.
RFK Jr. and his “I’m not anti-vaccine” rejoinder to being confronted with his past antivax statements: A primer
On Friday, CNN host Kasie Hunt interviewed antivax presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Although she did better than most journalists confronting him for his past antivax statements in that she played a clip of one of his antivax statements, she clearly hadn't anticipated his response, which should have been very predictable given that he's been using it for at least 15...
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comes home to his antivax roots…again
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote speech at the second annual meeting of his antivax organization, Children's Health Defense. Once again, he demonstrated that not only is he still antivax as hell, but that his proposals are even more bizarre than before. Truly, it was a homecoming for him.
Placebo Effect Revisited
The New York Times and Ted Kaptchuk feed into more confusion about placebo effects.
Adjectives
When a placebo is called 'powerful', what is meant? Nothing.