From: Party of Citizens (citizens@vcn.bc.ca)
Date: Tue Jul 10 2001 - 21:39:27 MDT
OK, try this. We have 20 patients in a hospital with similar ailments. In
claiming JR's million $ we are going to demonstrate the placebo effect as
a PK-effect. Patients are randomly assigned to group a or group b. Group a
gets sugar pills. Group b gets no treatment during the trial period. If
group a improves by measured criteria we claim the million $. The sugar
didn't cause the effect. It was SUGGESTION that caused it and not any
physical treatment. That's PK.
FWP
On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Party of Citizens wrote:
> >
> > Is the placebo effect a "psychic effect" in itself? Isn't it "mind over
> > matter", ie PK? The truth is out there.
>
> THere are various processes that could have placebo effects. I prefer to
> look at 'placebo' as a scientists explaination for something he has not,
> or is unwilling to, vigorously examine due to the narrow confines of
> his/her experimental hypothesis, while other scientists will ascribe
> what others would call a placebo effect to some causal agent without
> proving any actual linkage mechanism beyond a synchronicity of events. A
> case in point is one recently released which purports to show that low
> level radiation from nuclear plants causes significant rates of fetal
> congenital defects, by looking at a population local to a nuke plant
> during its start up and shut down. They claim this 'low level radiation'
> is the culprit, despite there being other more significant sources of
> radiation, including the sun, radon in their homes, and the radioactive
> fly ash in the concrete of the buildings they live and work in. They
> also fail to consider that the rise in fetal defects could easily be
> explained as a stress related phenomenon of media hype inducing
> excessive paranoia in pregnant mothers. Another thing they fail to do in
> the study is to look for similar rises and falls in fetal congenital
> defects in populations around coal plants, since it is a proven fact
> that the average coal plant puts out more radiation in its fly ash than
> the entire commercial nuke industry does.
>
> In this instance, the likely actual culprit according to Occams Razor,
> is stress related to media propaganda. Since stress is a known
> contributor to cancer, it follows that it would also be a contributor to
> developmental problems in fetuses.
>
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