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> Chang says that the paper is evidence that subtle, nonverbal factors "can have a large impact on the experience of pain" and Chang is wrong, wrong, wrong. T
by 08-15 7y ago
> Chang says that the paper is evidence that subtle, nonverbal factors "can have a large impact on the experience of pain"
and Chang is wrong, wrong, wrong. The phrase should have been "can have a large impact on how the experience of pain is reported".
There is no evidence that the patient actors experienced the pain any differently, only that they reported differently on it. Who knows, maybe they tried more to be good actors than they tried to be good patients?
Until a study shows up that measures sham treatment to be more effective than no treatment, I maintain that the placebo effect is simply regression to the mean, or unreliable self reporting, and prescribing a placebo, or a placebo under another name (homeopathy, alternative medicine, etc.) under any circumstances is fraud and a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.
- phonypc 7y agoHow would you propose to measure the experience of pain other than by self report? Also, the "doctors" were actors, not the patients. Edit: rather both were actors
- 08-15 7y agoHow am I supposed to know and how is it even relevant? The point is, the "placebo effect" (this is actually incorrect usage of the term) only seems to affect things that can't be measured. Why don't placebos heal infection or lower cholesterol levels or blood sugar or supplement thyroxin or something that is measurable? Because there is no "placebo effect" (in that incorrect sense). There is only bad reporting.
- phonypc 7y agoWell... you objected to the phrase "can have a large impact on the experience of pain" on the grounds that it was only reported pain. But pain is measured by self report. There's no other way to do it.
- 08-15 7y agoNo, there is simply no way to measure pain. Sorry about that, deal with it and just demonstrate the "placebo effect" of something that can be measured. Hasn't happened in ~50 years of breathless reporting on it, though, has it?
- phonypc 7y agoI know what you're getting at; you obviously can't measure pain in the same way you can measure blood pressure or heartrate (both of which, by the way, are affected by placebo.) But it's abject nonsense to extend that to the idea that you can't measure pain at all. Do you claim that the effect of opioids on pain is unmeasurable?
- 08-15 7y agoGetting further and further from the point... Du you claim that surgery could be performed under placebo-anaesthesia? Why or why not?
- pella 7y ago> Until a study shows up that measures sham treatment > to be more effective than no treatment, Effectiveness of sham acupuncture (placebo) was almost twice that of conventional therapy. ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17893311 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17893311 ) what is the ethical decision according to Hippocratic Oath? sham acupuncture (placebo) or conventional therapy ?
- 08-15 7y agoWhat was measured in that study and how? I can't see it from the abstract. Edit: also, how's that relevant? Acupuncture and sham acupuncture are the very same thing, so what's the placebo (no treatment) group here?
- pella 7y agohttps://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articlepdf/413107/ioi70115_1892_1898.pdf https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl... placebo acupuncture == sham acupuncture placebo != no treatment
- 08-15 7y agoActually, sham acupuncture == acupuncture. The study shows no significant difference in effect between the two.
- pella 7y ago""Sham acupuncture (SA), also called placebo acupuncture (PA)"" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5749386/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5749386/