Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on January 4, 2010 at 4:00am

Technically a parody, only it's not really funny because it's methodology is really indistinguishable from that of cranks. Zeitgeist pisstake from Ericbrooksdotcom.

Permalink Reply by Michelle on January 9, 2010 at 7:17pm

That was fun.

Permalink Reply by Glenn Sogge on January 10, 2010 at 10:47am

Another in the ongoing series of Special Investigations from NonStampCollector. This one is "Evolution".

Permalink Reply by sacha on January 10, 2010 at 1:00pm

That is extremely painful to watch.

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on January 31, 2010 at 4:22pm

Permalink Reply by Michelle on February 25, 2010 at 11:00pm

'frozen justice' - awesome

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on February 1, 2010 at 6:08pm

Permalink Reply by sacha on February 10, 2010 at 11:41am

Ben Goldacre on the Plecebo affect:

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on February 10, 2010 at 12:50pm

This brings up some interesting points. It's from UK but there are implications in the US.

- It's illegal and unethical for MDs and DOs to give sham treatments in the US. As it should be.
- Many people absolutely demand medications and treatments that are inappropriate, and strongly pressure their Dr. into giving these treatments. Classic example is antibiotic for "flu" or "cold". Antibiotics have absolutely no benefit for viral syndromes, and inappropriate use has risks and costs - can even be life threatening - anaphylaxis (rare, can be fatal), Stevens Johnson syndrome(rare, can be fatal), yeast infections (common) and colitis (common) to name a few. Even so, I would guess that the majority of antibiotics prescribed in the US are for viral syndromes. This does not mean that there are not times when antibiotic is given appropriately for a flu syndrome that in a specific case may be high risk for secondary infection, or bronchitis exacerbation in a high risk patient, but for the average healthy person, antibiotic for a cold is patient-demanded placebo, inappropriate, and probably given if the patient demands it. Some arthroscopic surgeries have similar sham effect.
- It's apparently not illegal for chiropractors, naturopaths, and alternative 'medicine' or 'holistic' providers to give sham treatments and remedies.
- The issue of a 'healing environment' is being increasingly addressed by health insurance companies, and the surveys they mail to patients. Also on-line like Angies List and other survey services. Increasingly, if a MD or DO gets recurrent survey results that say they are not friendly, timely, courteous, supportive, responsive, they may be fired from their jobs or terminated from their health insurance contracts. Some doctors now get "charm school training" from medical school, residency, and their places of employment, to address this issue. The downside is that people with an agenda (oxycodone, disability, other), personality disorder, or just plain sick a lot and therefore unhappy, can have undue impact. Plus, needing to address all needs in a responsive manner, run on time, and keep within the employer's time constraints, leads to many MDs saying screw it, they'd rather be in a specialty that isn't so demanding. I would still rather see an asshole who really knows their stuff, over an incompetent but nice person, but really would rather have a nice person who knows their stuff. That's just my 2¢, many would disagree.
-the concept of nocebo has equal power. Placebo is part of a continuum, from psychological benefit, to no effect, to psychological harm. Nocebo probably has more power in modern medicine, than placebo. Give someone a sugar pill and tell them it's an antibiotic, they may well think it helped cure their cold (but is illegal and inappropriate to do). Give a statin cholesterol pill, and tell them they may get muscle pains (should be part of informed consent), or a blood pressure pill and tell them they may lose their erections, or get dizzy, and they may have those symptoms even if they wouldn't have had otherwise. That's in a setting where both can happen, but who knows how many people have these effects due to the medication, and how many have them due to nocebo effect. Again, probably a continuum. So they go to the herbal remedy, and "feel like" their cholesterol or blood pressure or diabetes is controlled when in reality, the blood pressure and blood sugars are sky high and they are losing nerve endings and brain cells and will have a more miserable life due to their uncontrolled disease. It's complicated.

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on February 25, 2010 at 7:26pm

Atheism and the Null Hypothesis

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on February 25, 2010 at 11:22pm

Permalink Reply by Glenn Sogge on February 26, 2010 at 12:27pm

A new one from NonStampCollector (2/22/10): Context!!!!!!

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