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Related: About this forumEven "fake" pills can work.
A very informative, scientific documentary on the power of placebo.
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Warpy
(111,255 posts)That's why it's unethical to try to use it on people who are sick and need help.
You see it every day with hypochondriacs who are cured by homeopathy and vitamins.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)..."be predicted and controlled" and in a recent survey of doctors, they found fully a third admitted to using 'placebos'. In the U.K. it isn't even considered unethical.
Watch the film. It contradicts most of your beliefs but I always assumed medical professionals sought, not only cures, but continuing education.
I see "hypochondriacs" everywhere I look, but I also see the mass cultural media doing most of the work. If you had watched the film you would have caught the part of how the opposite of 'placebo'(I forget the word they use) can indeed make people sick.
The recent marketing of Shingles is a good example. Their television advertising is so heavy-handed that I can't watch it. It says that if you had measles (and who hasn't) you will most likely get shingles unless you purchase our vaccine. Bullshit.
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Warpy
(111,255 posts)In the video, the doctors said they were able to get away with placebo pills only if pills that actually worked were the majority of those given to patients. I sincerely hope they weren't doing that with birth control pills. However, the only way to increase the dismal 30% or so positive reaction to the placebo is to use the real treatment most of the time.
Second, it's chickenpox. If you had chickenpox, you are at risk for shingles later in life.
And yes, it's as unethical in the UK as it is here. The use is increasing because of underfunding and shortages in the NIH, thanks to conservative stinginess.
...and no, they weren't doing that with "birth control pills".
Just the same, the whole specious argument about "fake pills" undermines the more important aspects of the placebo phenomena which is illustrated in the opening case-study in the film, the 'fake surgery' which most medicalists would insist is ridiculous.
But there it is, still effective after 30 years and documented well enough to satisfy hard core skeptics.
In a socialized medical system where everything is free, you can bet the farm that those same hypochondriacs you spoke of, would try anything their doctor suggested. If you can save the system money and affect a cure a placebo is hardly "unethical".
But the most important aspect of placebo's is that they provide hints into the working of the human mind. Were the free market medical system not so invested in profit taking, it could do a lot for public health and social stability.
Where I came from we all had chicken pox too. We welcomed it and sacrificed a few days of school to let our bodies build up the resistance to whatever showed up down the line. That may be why none of us have shingles now....that and not watching those...those....speaking of "unethical" pharmaceutical advertisements, those TV ads selling vaccines.
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Warpy
(111,255 posts)They'll work about 30% of the time, you know.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)...and since I rarely seek medical help, there will be less chance for mainstream pharmacological poisoning.
As I've said before, I choose not to become dependent on the institution of medicine. That means I avoid their marketing, their snake oil and their henchmen. I have no quarrel with those who believe differently but I object to the wholesale promotion of disease with the sole objective of making money. Such is the case in your country.
If you don't want to take responsibility for the circumstances in your life then go ahead and spend what's left, looking for someone else to blame. Stand there and shake your fist at the sky but don't be so quick to dismiss the notion that 'Nobody is listening'.
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trotsky
(49,533 posts)And that people CHOOSE to get sick.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=219075
Contents of that post (documenting the history of outrageous statements):
"People get sick for their own purposes...'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=247&topic_id=16516&mesg_id=16996
"People choose ill health for their own reasons"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=247&topic_id=16516&mesg_id=17003
And yes you did decide to get that "painful, crippling...disease" for your own reasons. And now you're living through it...kicking and screaming....but living.
Of course, all I know or care to know about you is what you choose to put in your post. If you want me to know that you are in pain, disabled and uninsured then that is the life you want to project. Whether shit happens to me or not, it is not what my life is about so I won't mention it. Telling me about your pain and discomfort doesn't convince me of the reality of your disease, just your reaction to it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=247&topic_id=16516&mesg_id=17215
I'm saying WHATEVER you got you got for your own, obviously subconcious, intents and purposes
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=247&topic_id=16516&mesg_id=17067
The question isn't "...where did this disease come from..." but rather "Why did this disease come to me...".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=247&topic_id=16516&mesg_id=17056
To get where I'm at..."total mental control over health...." all you need to realize is that your thoughts and beliefs create your reality.
Some of the most horrible victim-blaming bullshit I've ever had the displeasure to read at DU.
Warpy
(111,255 posts)I do so love it when New Age nutbars tell me the rheumatoid arthritis I've had since I was a kid is all my fault.
Ignorant and cruel is a special combination. I just wonder what it's doing on DU.
Just wow. 
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)When it comes to 'the power of placebo', most people are speechless. Some, like the one to whom you're responding, think that the ideas are so bad that just putting them out there is enough.
I haven't gone through any of the links but I can safely say I stand behind whatever I have written. The editorializing about "victim blaming" is sophomoric bullshit. Saying that everybody is creating their own reality, is not blaming anybody for anything. Does that make sense to you????
The video in the OP makes it clear that what a person BELIEVES is the active ingredient. If it is doctors and vaccines then those will work. If a television advertisement tells a person that they have the 'shingles virus' then they'll get the vaccine. It will probably work because that is what they believe in.
I don't think it is in the public interest for democratically-minded Americans to keep defending what has to be one of the greatest scams of capitalism, the institution of free-market medicine. It's believable, because there is enough of you out there that have fallen for the myth that you're powerless.
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progressoid
(49,988 posts)CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)...but that is essentially correct.
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progressoid
(49,988 posts)We could just vaccinate babies with saline solution and whisper in their ears, "you need to believe this will work so you don't get tuberculosis".
Brilliant.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)...it's clearly too 'complicated' for you.
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progressoid
(49,988 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)which is why the right kind of studies are double blind, with neither patient nor doctor knowing who is getting what. Which is why any new medication has to be significantly better than the placebo effect to be considered effective.
I don't really want to take nearly an hour to watch something when I could read the text in about ten minutes.