Annals of Internal Medicine: "What's in Placebos: Who Knows?"

[GliderGuider]

According to this study just released, there is apparent opportunity for undetactable fraud on a massive scale in placebo-controlled drug trials. Would Big Pharma ever do such a thing????

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

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.

Data Synthesis: Most studies did not disclose the composition of the study placebo. Disclosure was less common for pills than for injections and other treatments (8.2% vs. 26.7%; P = 0.002).

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.

Primary Funding Source: University of California Foundation Fund 3929—Medical Reasoning.

One commentator's opinion:

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?

[amyrose2712]

1. ...

[Avalux]

2. Hmmm......

I worked on a lot of placebo-controlled clinical trials. The placebo capsules are dispensed in pill bottles or blister cards with ingredients listed. Most of the trials were randomized, double-blind, so the bottle label was "either or".

[GliderGuider]

3. So why did they find such a low rate of reporting in the publications?

Is it just not considered necessary? I would expect that a panel of researchers like that would have been aware of the nuances of double-blind protocol? And what of the per review panel at AIM? If what you say is true, it should have resulted in the study being rejected out of hand.

[Yrger]

4. What is the point of being dishonest in testing placebos?

Placebos are supposed to be composed of medically inert substances like for example corn starch.

A tablet composed of only corn starch can pass for a placebo of an aspirin tablet.

I like to ask if the OP is concerned that instead of a tablet composed purely of corn starch, a placebo passing for an aspirin tablet in fact fraudulently contains some substances that are efficacious in pain relief like for headache?


So, what is the point of dishonesty in the testing of a placebo?




Yrger

[TZ]

5. I work on clinical trials

and this statement..
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?

IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT. Clinical trials are 10 YEARS of arduous research on humans ..thats not EVEN counting the years and years of pre-clinical toxicological animal testing. Only 30% of drugs that start trials even get to market stage. I've encountered bad data in a clinical trial ONCE in 15 years of work..and that was for something still in the experimental stage.
You know what they use for placebos in most trials? Saline solutions! EEEK EVUL! No one needs to say what their placebo is, thats not necessary to the testing.
God, this post is incredibly dumb and willfully ignorant.
But you can go and get cyanide marketed as a cancer cure from homopaths and naturopaths legally. Or a sugar pill can be marketed as a treatment for malaria and HIV by homopaths with NO DATA what so ever.
Spare me from fundamentalist idiots because thats what you are.

[Posteritatis]

6. If this was Facebook I'd be clicking the "like" button frantically

Is the human testing part actually ten years? I'd had the impression that ten years was the whole process, from "this might be interesting" through animal and then human testing.

[originalpckelly]

7. Thanks for explaining this to average people, like me.

I may be dumb, but I agree with you. All this weird ass "medicine" parading around is nothing but old-fashioned snake oil.

[Avalux]

8. Thank you. n/t