Editorial - Placebos in Trials

[Why Syzygy]

http://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-prager/are-peer-reviewed-journal-entries-reliable-for-pharmaceuticals-maybe-not-/10150109190219838

(NaturalNews) You know all those thousands of clinical trials conducted over the last few decades comparing pharmaceuticals to placebo pills? Well, it turns out all those studies must now be completely thrown out as utterly non-scientific. And why? Because the placebos used in the studies weren't really placebos at all, rendering the studies scientifically invalid.

This is the conclusion from researchers at the University of California who published their findings in the October issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. They reviewed 167 placebo-controlled trials published in peer-reviewed medical journals in 2008 and 2009 and found that 92 percent of those trials never even described the ingredients of their placebo pills

Why is this important? Because placebo pills are supposed to be inert. But nothing is inert, it turns out. Even so-called "sugar pills" contain sugar, obviously. And sugar isn't inert. If you're running a clinical trial on diabetics, testing the effectiveness of a diabetes drug versus a placebo then obviously your clinical trial is going to make the diabetes drug look better than placebo if you use sugar pills as your placebo.

Some placebo pills use olive oil which may actually improve heart health. Other placebo pills use partially-hydrogenated oils which harm heart health. Yet only 8 percent of clinical trials bothered to list the placebo ingredients at all!

Stay with me on this placebo issue... because it gets even more bizarre...

There are no FDA rules regarding placebos in clinical trials

It turns out there are absolutely no FDA rules regarding the choice or composition of placebos used in clinical trials. Technically, a clinical trial director could use eye of newt or lizard's legs as placebo and would not even be required to mention such nefarious details in the trial results. That would cause trouble, trouble, boil and bubble! (Shakespeare reference for all you literary fans...)

We already know that clinical trials are rife with fraud. Most of the clinical trials used by pharmaceutical companies to win FDA approval of their drugs, for example, are funded by pharmaceutical companies. And it is a verifiable fact that most clinical trials tend to find results that favor the financial interests of whatever organization paid for them. So what's to stop Big Pharma from scheming up the perfect placebo that would harm patients just enough to make their own drugs look good by comparison? (...)

[Posteritatis]

1. LOL, NaturalNews. (nt)

[Why Syzygy]

2. LOL, Ad hominem. (nt)

[Posteritatis]

4. That's not an ad hominem, that's contempt for a worthless, mendacious "news" source. (nt)

[Why Syzygy]

3. What's in Placebos?

http://www.annals.org/content/153/8/532.abstract

What's in Placebos: Who Knows? Analysis of Randomized, Controlled Trials

1. Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD;
2. Laura C. Erickson, BS;
3. Sabrina Koperski, BS;
4. Deanna Sack, BS;
5. Murray Enkin, MD; and
6. Jeremy Howick, PhD

+ Author Affiliations

1.
From the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, San Diego, California; McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; and Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Background: No regulations govern placebo composition. The composition of placebos can influence trial outcomes and merits reporting.

Purpose: To assess how often investigators specify the composition of placebos in randomized, placebo-controlled trials.

Data Sources: 4 English-language general and internal medicine journals with high impact factors.

(...)

Conclusion: Placebos were seldom described in randomized, controlled trials of pills or capsules. Because the nature of the placebo can influence trial outcomes, placebo formulation should be disclosed in reports of placebo-controlled trials.

[Celebration]

6. Sounds reasonable to me

I wonder why anyone would be against this? :shrug:

What is it I am missing? Why aren't placebos described?

[HuckleB]

7. I don't think anyone is against requiring that placebos are described.

There's no doubt that it should have been happening, well, forever, and this study is very fair.

David Gorski has come out in general agreement with the study's recommendations. So far, I haven't seen anything that indicates anyone has come out against the recommendations.

See: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/10/whats_in_a_placebo_mike_adams_certainly.php

Of course, he also takes Mike Adams' ludicrous extrapolation in the OP to task, as well he should.

[customerserviceguy]

5. There's not enough of anything in placebos

to really do anything, unless some sort of test involves numerous pills a day. Then, perhaps an olive oil placebo might have a marginal effect.

That said, it's not a bad idea when a study's results are released to report what the placebos consisted of.