Guest guest Posted October 23, 2003 Report Share Posted October 23, 2003 > Wainwright, > > If you as a practitioner can " enhance " something ... anything ... even a placebo effect ... in a manner which can be demonstrated, isn't this efficacy? By definition? Also by definition, placebos are safe. Thus, one could say you have successfully demonstrated " efficacy " and " safety " . Fascinating, no? Wouldn't that make CM efficacious and safe? Is this what you are presenting here? > > Subversively yours, > > Emmanuel Segmen Emmanuel, Interesting way of putting it. > If you as a practitioner can " enhance " something ... anything ... even a placebo effect ... in a manner which can be demonstrated, isn't this efficacy? By definition?> Agreed. >Also by definition, placebos are safe.> Firstly, we must agree on what a placebo is. I think this is a very complex issue. Once we reach agreement about this, if we do, I might agree. However, it is a finding in clinical trials that placebos often produce the same 'side effects' as the drugs being tested. So, in the light of current understanding, it is probably not accurate to state that placebos are always safe. >Thus, one could say you have successfully demonstrated " efficacy " and " safety " . Possibly, with the qualifications stated above. >Is this what you are presenting here?> Perhaps in part. I don't dispute the importance of the totality of the encounter between 'patient' and 'healer'. There is good research evidence that this is important, even though it's self-evident without support from research. I also think that ethics is a very important issue between 'patient' and 'healer'. Medicine should always be an ethical encounter, in my opinion, with all that this implies - and it implies a lot. We need to define placebo, as mentioned above. I suspect that the immediate notion we have of it is very inadequate, and possibly self-contradictory. Also, we must be very careful to highlight that the concept of placebo is based on paradigm considerations, perhaps totally. In other words, it's not independant of paradigm considerations, and the moment we speak about placebo, we must consider paradigm issues, inter-paradigm issues, etc. Wainwright Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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