Placebos Are Getting More Effective

[goldisheavy]

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazin...currentPage=all

 

I found this article to be very interesting and worth reading in its entirety. Here are some choice quotes:

 

"In interviews with the press, Edward Scolnick, Merck's research director, laid out his battle plan to restore the firm to preeminence. Key to his strategy was expanding the company's reach into the antidepressant market, where Merck had lagged while competitors like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline created some of the best-selling drugs in the world. 'To remain dominant in the future,' he told Forbes, 'we need to dominate the central nervous system.'"

 

"It's not only trials of new drugs that are crossing the futility boundary(*). Some products that have been on the market for decades, like Prozac, are faltering in more recent follow-up tests. In many cases, these are the compounds that, in the late '90s, made Big Pharma more profitable than Big Oil. But if these same drugs were vetted now, the FDA might not approve some of them. Two comprehensive analyses of antidepressant trials have uncovered a dramatic increase in placebo response since the 1980s. One estimated that the so-called effect size (a measure of statistical significance) in placebo groups had nearly doubled over that time."

 

"Beecher's prescription helped cure the medical establishment of outright quackery, but it had an insidious side effect. By casting placebo as the villain in RCTs, he ended up stigmatizing one of his most important discoveries. The fact that even dummy capsules can kick-start the body's recovery engine became a problem for drug developers to overcome, rather than a phenomenon that could guide doctors toward a better understanding of the healing process and how to drive it most effectively."

 

(*) Futility boundary definition: "Ultimately, Merck's foray into the antidepressant market failed. In subsequent tests, MK-869 turned out to be no more effective than a placebo. In the jargon of the industry, the trials crossed the futility boundary."

[doc benway]

I think that an increase in the placebo effect is best explained by cultural and social conditioning.

[Marblehead]

GiH,

 

Isn't this consistent with your thread on "Beliefs"?

 

Peace & Love!

[goldisheavy]

I think that an increase in the placebo effect is best explained by cultural and social conditioning.

 

I agree, and I think it's a good thing too. A harbinger of good things to come.

 

GiH,

 

Isn't this consistent with your thread on "Beliefs"?

 

Peace & Love!

 

Of course it is. If you think there is a theme behind my posting(s), or a certain set of themes, you are right.

[soaring crane]

I wonder often how much the huge pharma concerns understand about the placebo effect and how much they keep hidden. It must be a lot.

 

I mentioned that my mother worked at one of these companies - well, she worked in "Regulatory Affairs", assembling research papers for submission to the FDA, and collecting responses from the FDA and prepping them for the researchers. She sat right in the middle of the two. She says with authority that the placebo effect is without compare the biggest obstacle for the researchers and always has been.

 

Healthy people get in the way of profits.

 

Medical research revolves around two main themes: creating synthetic compositions that are unique enough to be patented, and getting around the placebo effect (ie, real healing). The first is the reason they'll never fund (or release) unbiased studies on the efficacy of natural medicines (or therapies, or lifestyle changes), and the second is the reason so many of the drugs turn out to be so harsh and laden with unhealthy side-effects.

 

I'd say the theme ties in well with the Demons thread...

Edited January 5, 2010 by soaring crane