Reverse Placebo Effect

Percy writes:

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I wonder if there is such a thing as the reverse placebo effect, where you give someone a real drug but tell them it's a placebo that won't have any effect.

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Interesting, but that presumes a placebo effect.It turns out that there is no such thing. The problem is that testing for a placebo effect requires three groups: One that receives treatment, one that receives a placebo, and one that receives no treatment at all, just observation. Most studies only do the first two. Thus, since they have no control for placebo compared to doing nothing, they have no way to determine if what happened is a "placebo effect" or if it's just what you would normally expect to have happen if nothing was done at all.Well, a survey of those studies that did actually do all three groups was done and the results are that there is no such thing as a "placebo effect." Taking a placebo had no significant difference from doing nothing. The only effect that had any significance was that those taking placebo reported slightly less pain than those only being observed.Pill Popping: Debunking the power of the placebo effect.So since there doesn't seem to be a placebo effect, it stands to reason that there is no converse to it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Panda responds to me:

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And this from Wiki

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Oy. Wikipedia isn't a source.At any rate, you seem to have missed your own source's point: See? The same conclusions. From the review: I certainly understand the need to do more study and some of the findings about how the brain works and how it can affect the body are fascinating, but the simple fact remains that comparing treatment-to-placebo and then declaring a placebo effect begs the question: It presumes that which is being claimed. Then there is the problem of the original claim: Beecher only included positive effects. That is, in his study of placebo, he only reported those who had improvement: Those who got worse were simply ignored.Now, I understand the need to compare treatment to something that isn't treatment. How on earth do you know if the treatment actually does anything if you don't compare it to something that isn't the treatment? But that extends to placebo: How do you know the placebo is actually doing something if you don't compare it to something that isn't the placebo? The treatment isn't a good choice because we're hoping it will actually do something.No, you have to compare it to letting the body do its own thing. So far, all the studies that actually had the three groups have not reported any clinical difference between taking a placebo and doing nothing. So if doing nothing is identical to taking a placebo, how is there any sort of effect?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Panda responds to me:

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I am glad that you agree with me that the certainty conveyed in your previous post is inappropriate.

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Nice try, but no. My confidence is not reduced but is, in fact, increased. They performed a deeper study and found the same thing: There is no placebo effect.It is now up to those who claim placebo to show their proof. Since the original report that started the entire concept of a "placebo effect" has been shown to be fraudulent, we need to do work to justify the claim (shades of the "vaccines cause autism" fraud). We don't get to assume that which we need to prove, especially since true investigation has shown opposite results. Since doing placebo trials is ethically challenged as it is, we should be sure that there's a reason to do it in the first place.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Panda responds to me:

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So every scientist has abandoned all research into placebos and, in fact, the word placebo is no longer used.

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Ah, so you want to play dumb. OK.

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To be honest, the odds of the mind having any effect on the body was pretty unbelievable.

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The way the placebo effect is described? You betcha. Things like pain perception, that makes sense since pain is a mental perception and thus based in the brain. But causing cancer to go into remission? Please. Yeah, stress hormones have associations with immune responses, but in the question of full-blown disease, it would only be effective in marginal cases at best.You can't think you're way out of a bacterial infection.

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I will await the deletion of the 'placebo' Wiki page.

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Because Wikipedia is such a respected source. PubMed references it all the time.

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Oh wait...

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OK...I'll wait. I'll wait for you to read my original post which pointed that fact out.You did read my post before responding didn't you?I'll wait.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Panda responds to me:

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Things like pain perception, that makes sense since pain is a mental perception and thus based in the brain.

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No! No!
The placebo effect CANNOT work!
It has been proven to not exist!!!

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I see you've decided to continue to play dumb.At least would you admit that you didn't read my post before responding? You will notice, for example, that I pointed out that the only clinical effect noted regarding placebo was a slight decrease in response to pain. And if you had read the article I had referenced, it gives an explanation (albeit a bit flippant): When you attend to someone in pain, they can understandably feel less pain. It isn't that any treatment is doing it but rather the psychological response.That is quite different from placebo effects on disease. You can't think your way out of cancer.

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I think your confirmation bias is too far gone, else you would understand that even your own quotes undermine your argument.

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Nice try, but that's my argument to you.Your own source contradicted your claim. You do understand what the following sentence means, yes: "Similar conclusions." That is, people thought there might have been a problem so they performed a more in-depth meta-analysis of the studies that existed and came to the same conclusion.How is that "confirmation bias"? How does one interpret the phrase, "similar conclusions" to mean "contradictory results"?Be specific.Do you have any evidence of any studies that compared the three groups required to validate placebo--treatment, placebo, and observation--and came to a different conclusion?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.