At 9:51 AM -0600 3/7/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >3) There's one further problem here. Change scores for placebos don't >show purely the power of the placebo. As some depression is short-term >and goes away on its own as people find their own ways of dealing with >their problems, placebo effects are inflated by effects due merely to the >passage of time. To truly evaluate the effect of placebos, expensive or >otherwise, we really need information on a group given no treatment at >all, a suggestion I believe we heard from Michael S. not too long ago. >Unfortunately, I imagine ethical considerations would make this data now >impossible to obtain.
And to further complicate things, the discriminability of the side effects of antidepressants is strong enough so that a true placebo (one with the same side effects as the test drug but lacking the main effect) is hard to find. -- The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that people believe in it. * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * * http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ * --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
