If this is a case for removing the practice of placebo from medical testing, I don’t think it holds up. There are other reasons a placebo affects a result. As another mentioned, the patient, or whoever reports the data, likely has a tendency to shift their reporting towards what they believe the conductors of the study wish to hear. If we introduce a placebo pill, subjects have no way to tell what results the proctor ‘wants’. Generally, placebos are trivial to implement, likely taking less time than would accurately determining on a case-by-case basis which trials would benefit from a placebo
It’s okay, the post is eight pages long and not super internally consistent, basically because I had to work on Monday and didn’t want to edit it. I don’t make a post like that expecting everyone to read every paragraph and get a perfectly clear idea of what I’m saying.
If this is a case for removing the practice of placebo from medical testing, I don’t think it holds up. There are other reasons a placebo affects a result. As another mentioned, the patient, or whoever reports the data, likely has a tendency to shift their reporting towards what they believe the conductors of the study wish to hear. If we introduce a placebo pill, subjects have no way to tell what results the proctor ‘wants’. Generally, placebos are trivial to implement, likely taking less time than would accurately determining on a case-by-case basis which trials would benefit from a placebo
Note that the penultimate paragraph of the post says
> We do still need placebo groups.
Oh that’s pretty bad I somehow managed to write what the post wrote as a contradiction to the post. Apologies. Thank you for pointing it out
It’s okay, the post is eight pages long and not super internally consistent, basically because I had to work on Monday and didn’t want to edit it. I don’t make a post like that expecting everyone to read every paragraph and get a perfectly clear idea of what I’m saying.