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adiemus · 07-13-2008, 12:46 AM

I was hoping someone would raise this issue - and Ben Goldacre's site is a very good one.
I'm concerned about people being deliberately sold 'cures' for things that either work through placebo, or have no effect at all - but are mistaken to have an effect.
Dan Moerman is a researcher (I think he's an anthropologist), who studies placebo - his description of it is that it's a 'meaning response' - that is, both the person attending for health care, and the giver of health care provide an interaction in context of expectations. This means that many times, it's not just the 'active ingredients' in a health care interaction (eg the drugs, or the massage or the counselling), it's the belief the person attending has in the health professional, and the communication skills of the health professional both interacting to help the person expect to get better - and they do.
What gets me about people who deliberately set out to deceive people (ie knowing that their goods are inert and rubbish) is that good people end up paying huge amounts of money for things that have no research back-up. It's slightly less irritating when the health care provider actually believes in his or her product - but then, responsible health care providers really should know what science has to say on their product before setting out to sell it.

As humans we are prone to cognitive and perceptual biases - and this means we don't like to find out (after the fact) that we have fallen for a crook, so we often unwittingly attribute healing to the individual we just saw, rather than realising many times you'll get better in a week or 7 days, irrespective of who you saw or what you took!

So if people get hoodwinked in health care, how much more so are they in an area of life whether they don't have to be critical - eg the origins of belly dance?!

07-13-2008, 12:46 AM	#5 (permalink)
adiemus Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Christchurch, New Zealand Posts: 977	I was hoping someone would raise this issue - and Ben Goldacre's site is a very good one. I'm concerned about people being deliberately sold 'cures' for things that either work through placebo, or have no effect at all - but are mistaken to have an effect. Dan Moerman is a researcher (I think he's an anthropologist), who studies placebo - his description of it is that it's a 'meaning response' - that is, both the person attending for health care, and the giver of health care provide an interaction in context of expectations. This means that many times, it's not just the 'active ingredients' in a health care interaction (eg the drugs, or the massage or the counselling), it's the belief the person attending has in the health professional, and the communication skills of the health professional both interacting to help the person expect to get better - and they do. What gets me about people who deliberately set out to deceive people (ie knowing that their goods are inert and rubbish) is that good people end up paying huge amounts of money for things that have no research back-up. It's slightly less irritating when the health care provider actually believes in his or her product - but then, responsible health care providers really should know what science has to say on their product before setting out to sell it. As humans we are prone to cognitive and perceptual biases - and this means we don't like to find out (after the fact) that we have fallen for a crook, so we often unwittingly attribute healing to the individual we just saw, rather than realising many times you'll get better in a week or 7 days, irrespective of who you saw or what you took! So if people get hoodwinked in health care, how much more so are they in an area of life whether they don't have to be critical - eg the origins of belly dance?! __________________ He wahine, he taonga- Every woman is a treasure(Maori proverb)