3 ms·
That Placebo Effect is so strong I don't even bother to debunk natural remedies. Plus, I might be throwing the baby out with the bath water, but right now I'm
by marincounty 12y ago
That Placebo Effect is so strong I don't even bother to debunk natural remedies. Plus, I might be throwing the
baby out with the bath water, but right now I'm very skeptical of a lot of pharmacuticals studies. They just lied
to us so many times when it comes to the efficacy of their newest drug.
- pdabbadabba 12y agoI get your skepticism, but does it not help that pharmaceutical studies are closely reviewed by the FDA before a drug can be marketed? Getting a new drug approved is far from easy.
- duwease 12y agoNot nearly as much as you might think. Check out "Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre. It's a treatment of the statistical and legal tricks used by drug companies to overstate the efficacy of new drugs, without breaking any actual FDA regulations. Even after using all the known tricks for cherry-picking results, p-hacking, and the like, there exist much-abused FDA 'fast track' options for getting a 'needed' drug out before the science is confirmed, and quite often the science never gets around to being confirmed. Even big-name drugs like Tamiflu have been shown later to be no better than generics at best and completely useless at worst.
- pc2g4d 12y agoIt's also not that hard---perform your own research, under conditions you specify, using analysis methods you dictate, with the ability to retry over and over and over until a favorable result arises by chance, THEN the FDA scrutinizes it.
- fit2rule 12y agoThe same FDA that is staffed by ex-pharmaceutical executives, and the same pharmaceutical companies that are staffed by ex-FDA staff? The FDA is really not something you can reasonably, or should, trust.