Paging Emerlion!

[drwex]

Sham acupuncture works better than sham pills.

Comparing patients who got simulated acupuncture with patients who got placebo pills showed greater effects for the fake needle than for the placebo pill on self-reported pain and severity of symptoms. It's all about the elaborate rituals.

(thanks to docbug for the link)

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

It's all about the elaborate rituals.

Nah, it's all about the placebo effect. And salesmanship. ;-P

[drwex]

Did you read the report? It's comparing two placebo effects. One conclusion is that the elaborateness of the ritual invokes a stronger effect.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Salesmanship.

Really, that's what it comes down to.

[emerlion.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'm great at sales to infants and babies.

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

The rapid responses are fascinating. From my reading, they make the paper's conclusions deeply flawed.

If it's really about the ritual, how about just varying the ritual, with exactly the same treatment? That seems like a straightforward study for pills, at least. And maybe eagle feathers.

My placebo story is that homeopathy cured my asthma. I didn't really believe in it, but I figured what the heck, went throught the process, and it worked better than anything other than advair (which wasn't available at the time). Then I saw a talk by James Randi about it, in which he's quite convincing that homeopathy could not possibly work. And, lo and behold, it stopped working for me. Which really sucked.

In other words, the placebo affect is very, very real and very very useful -- but it can't be used when you know its being used!