Interesting, Post + comments..

[MSUK]

Interesting.... http://tinyurl.com/y6zumbn

[sbr487]

It would be rather foolish to expect any neuro institute to support CCSVI. I would not bet on them to take care of MS patients anymore ...

[happy_canuck]

If you go up a level, you'll see Gavin posting links to his own articles on causation:

http://multiple-sclerosis-research.blogspot.com/

[1eye]

Anybody can argue with me all they want. Who am I, anyway?

But I think that placebo has been discredited as a treatment for anything, except maybe headaches, by meta-study.

So as a control it is equivalent to No Treatment.

Harm is done by inaction. Same with CCSVI treatment. Putting sick people in a study, and denying them treatment, is harmful.

So is denying them treatment because a study is going on, especially if it may be studying something unrelated. Hippocrates would NOT approve.

[Lyon]

.

[ozarkcanoer]

1eye, There is a placebo for headaches !!!! Tell me where I can get it .

ozarkcanoer

[1eye]

from Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions

Asbjørn Hróbjartsson1, Peter C Gøtzsche1

1The Nordic Cochrane Centre, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark

Contact address: Asbjørn Hróbjartsson, The Nordic Cochrane Centre, Rigshospitalet, Blegdamsvej 9, 3343, Copenhagen, 2100, Denmark. ah@cochrane.dk.

Editorial group: Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group.
Publication status and date: New search for studies and content updated (conclusions changed), published in Issue 1, 2010.
Review content assessed as up-to-date: 10 November 2009.

Citation: Hróbjartsson A, Gøtzsche PC. Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD003974. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3.

Copyright © 2010 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Plain language summary

Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions
Placebo interventions are often claimed to substantially improve many clinical conditions. However, most reports on effects of placebos are based on unreliable studies that have not randomised patients to placebo or no treatment.

We studied the effect of placebo treatments by reviewing 202 trials comparing placebo treatment with no treatment covering 60 healthcare problems. In general, placebo treatments produced no major health benefits, although on average they had a modest effect on outcomes reported by patients, such as pain. However, the effect on pain varied from large to non-existent, even in well-conducted trials. Variations in the effect of placebo was partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted, the type of placebo used, and whether patients were informed that the trial involved placebo.



I say: if it's not an intervention it's 'no treatment'.