Medical lies Medical study ploys Placebos
ANOTHER OUTRAGEOUS MEDICAL LIE
Rappoport, Jon
MAY 17, 2011. Today, I want to alert you to a staggering medical practice in
clinical trials of psychiatric drugs.
It's called "placebo washout."
Basically, it works this way. Before a drug company starts to test the
effectiveness of a medicine they want to market, they bring together all the
volunteers-and they give them a sugar pill.
They tell them, "We're going to give you a sugar pill."
After a ten-day period on these placebos, the researchers weed out the people
who improved, got better, feel better. They dump them from the ensuing clinical
trial. Bye bye.
Of course, they claim there are good reasons for this washout strategy. But the
fact is, eliminating these volunteers from the study makes it more likely that
the drug will look good.
I'll explain why this is so in a second. But first, in case you don't believe
placebo washout is a real and widespread practice, I'll give you two references
out of many: RP Greenberg et al, PMID 857037, PubMed-indexed for Medline; and JG
Rabkin et al, "Baseline Characteristics of 10-day placebo washout responders in
antidepressant trials," PMID.
It's real. They give everybody a sugar pill, and then they dismiss all those who
got better on it.
Then they get down to the clinical trial. They divide the remaining volunteers
into two groups. Those that will receive the drug, and those who will be given
another placebo.
Of course, nobody is told which group they're going to be in. That's the whole
point. Blinding the study enables researchers to compare the number of people
who get better on the drug with those who get better on the placebo.
You see, it's common knowledge that some people will get better on anything.
That's why they test the two groups. They have to prove the drug is performing
better than the sugar pill.
General estimates vary on what percentage of people get better on placebos.
35-45%, some researchers say, is a rule of thumb. Sometimes the % is higher.
But wait! The researchers ALREADY kicked out the people who got better on the
sugar pill during the 10-day preliminary washout!
That means they're trying to decrease the beneficial effect of the sugar pill in
the clinical trial. Get it? Which means, by comparison, they'll claim the drug
performed very well.
The FDA, which approves all drugs for public use, knows this. Researchers know
this. Shrinks know this. Drug companies know this. Even some medical reporters
know this.
And yet, the practice goes on.
Placebo washout is on the order of saying, "Yes, we tested the new plane and it
performs magnificently. Of course, we didn't put it into the air. We rolled it
across the runway."
If there are any psychiatrists out there who are reading this, any researchers
who want to defend placebo washout, I suggest we set up a radio debate with Dr.
Peter Breggin, psychiatrist and author. I'm sure I can arrange it. But I warn
you. Buckle up. It'll be a bumpy ride. We will get into the air on this one.
Another public service of No More Fake News.
Placebo washout. Rigging the game. Stacking the deck. The bigger the lie and the
more obvious it is, the harder it is to believe that's what's you're looking at.
Until you LOOK.
In my 39 years as a reporter, I've come across maybe 100 scandals that could
cause a significant sector of the medical cartel to burst into flames and blow
away in the wind. This is one of those.
Of course, media, government, and drug corporations make sure such a thing never
happens. And when I say media, I'm including publications you'd think would love
to watch a really good fire. Turns out they have no stomach for it.
JON RAPPOPORT
www.nomorefakenews.com
qjrconsulting@gmail.com