Jean Edwards wrote: :
>In experiments involving placebos, what are all the subjects/participants
>told? I was reading about a medical procedure reported in newsweek
>regarding surgery to relieve symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Some of the
>participants received the real operation; others a sham operation.
>Researchers found that those receiving the sham operation "benefited
>almost as much as those who had fetal cells implanted in their brains."
>Again, what are the subjects told? And.. I wonder what happens if the
>patients who receive the sham operation find out it was a sham.
>
I'll be interested to hear more about this from Tipsters who are
knowledgeable in the area. For what
it's worth, though, let me share an anecdote from a book chapter I had on
my shelf. The quote comes
from a chapter written by Joel Weinberger & Andrew Eig, in Irving Kirsch's
book, "How Expectancies
Shape Experience (1999, APA Books):
"A well-known and dramatic clinical vignette can demonstrate the power of
this phenomenon much
more strongly than the mere recitation of data. Klopfer (1957) reported
that a patient with advanced
cancer persuaded his physician to try a new experimental cancer drug on
him. Within 2 weeks, there
was virtually no cancerous tissue left. After a couple of months of
complete health, this patient read
that the drug had proved ineffective in clinical trials. He almost
immediately relapsed. His physician
convinced him that a double dose of the drug would be effective. The
patient again recovered and
remained well for another couple of months. However, once more, he had the
misfortune of reading
that the drug had been declared completely ineffective. His cancer
returned and he died within
days."
This story certainly raises some interesting questions about the ethics of
placebo treatments. Of
course, it would be nice to have some "mere recitation of data" to go along
with the story, but from
skimming the other chapters of Kirsch's book, it appears that other
chapters are much more
data oriented. I had meant to read the book more closely this summer, but
you all know how that
can go...
Anyhow, the citation for the Klopfer paper cited in the above quote is:
Klopfer, B. (1957). Psychological variables in human cancer. Journal of
Projective Techniques, 21,
331 - 340.
-Mike
************************************************
Michael J. Kane
Department of Psychology
P.O. Box 26164
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27402-6164
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone: 336-256-1022
fax: 336-334-5066
