October 23, 2005How You'd do Trials without PlaceboA reader commented, wondering how you'd do experiments, especially basic molecular research, without using placebo. Wouldn't my little "no placebo for the mentally ill" idea be disrupting research? It wouldn't stop a thing. Doing basic research in animals won't be stopped at all. Give rats all the sugar pills you want. But when you are doing basic efficacy trials in humans with mental illness--ie., asking the basic Gomer question of whether med X has any effect whatsoever--then using placebo as your control med is stupid. You already know there will be limited response to placebo and it is unfair to give a known nothing to sick patients. You can test the basic efficacy and do proof of concept in med X just by giving patients the damn med and seeing how they respond to it. If docs are really that desperate for a control med, then give the patients who'd otherwise get placebo something that is already known to work...Lithium, Zoloft, an antipsychotic, whatever. No more placebo. If the research world was under an ethical cloud for giving placebo to AIDS/HIV patients, then they are under the same cloud for giving placebo to the mentally ill. Email me questions if you have any. Posted by Philip Dawdy at October 23, 2005 01:20 PM
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Why should the AIDS victim be given more humane treatment than the schizophrenic? Why should the AIDS victim have special pretty little ribbons whereas the schizophrenic gets locked up in a seclusion room? Why should the AIDS victim have all these happy little marathons whereas the schizophrenic recieves forced injections of Geodone? Why should the AIDS victim get balloons and chocolate from her friends, whereas the schizoprhenic never has anyone come to visit her on the psych unit? Why should the AIDS victim have nurses and doctors at her beck and call whereas the schizophrenic has to be restrained on a gurney for hours on end? Hell, why am I using the term 'AIDS victim' and 'schizophrenic' whearas I could be using the terms 'AIDSic' and 'schizoprhenia victim'? Hell, why is there a hell at all in treatment for people with schizoprhenia, whereas for people with AIDS, only the creme de la creme will suffice? WHY??? Posted by: Gwen Davis at October 23, 2005 10:06 PM |
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