31–40 of 141 posts
Aren't the side effects mimicked so that participants won't see the lack of them and then know that they're taking the placebo which will defeat the double blind study? For example, if you're testing fish oil, you wouldn't use a sugar pill since it's easy to know what you're taking by looking at it. You would use something like olive oil.
I don't know how that fits in with blinding everyone involved. As abtinf and refurb mention, designing placebo is a difficult process.
And you don't need to include anything to create side-effects; people taking sugar pills will happily report having a range of side effects.
Having worked in the pharma industry, this article is complete bullshit. For double and triple blind (the third blind comes from not even the pharma company knowing the blinding details until after the trial) placebo design is an extraordinarily complex undertaking. A placebo must match the drug in physical appearance, taste, texture, density, state (liquid/solid/gas), and anticipated side effects. Any material diffe…
It doesn't seem an undue burden to ask that the placebo ingredients be documented so that their effect on the study, which is critical by any measure, can be understood. How can a separate group reproduce the results of a study if they don't have this type of information?
What you seem to have said is - trust us. We won't tell you what's going on, you can't evaluate how well we are doing, but this is a totally hard problem so don't worry about it. This is disingenuous when the drug companies have vested interests in the outcome of these studies.
If the drug companies are truly doing such a great job, then they should be recognized for the excellent work. The only way to do that is to release the ingredients used in the creation of placebos.
This seems like a ridiculous blog post. Only 6% of clinical studies list what their placebo was, so the conclusion from that is that there is a concerted effort by drug companies to unscrupulously modified the outcomes of their studies by choosing biologically active placebos. That's a bit of a stretch. Typically what is done for a study is that drug company will manufacture the drug for the study in tablet form, com…
However, I'm sure that, in some cases there are oversights in the placebo choice (we do make mistakes), and we don't know which ones.
There are also big financial stakes, and pharmaceutic firms are known to cheat while attempting to bring drugs to the market. The burial of negative studies come to mind.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just look for homeopathic remedies then. Guaranteed not to have any active ingredients.
That's not strictly true. Homeopathic remedies do often include small amounts of alcohol or sugar.
Having worked in the pharma industry, this article is complete bullshit. For double and triple blind (the third blind comes from not even the pharma company knowing the blinding details until after the trial) placebo design is an extraordinarily complex undertaking. A placebo must match the drug in physical appearance, taste, texture, density, state (liquid/solid/gas), and anticipated side effects. Any material diffe…
I was about to write something similar. Thanks for formulating it so eloquently. I think it's this part that trips up some people: > [...] at a minimum it unblinds the doctors on the ground. It's very important that the person administering the drug/monitoring the patient can not tell the difference.
There was one study where a drug was designed to improve motor response in patients with retarded motor skills. The doctors had found a way to determine which patient was receiving which drug.
So when it came time for the doctors to measure efficacy of the drug, they would do the motor skills test. If the patient was on the actual drug, and didn't show improvement, the doctors had a tendency to say things like "Well, that can't be right. Let me run the test again."
Disaster. Hundred million dollar trial down the toilet.
This seems like a ridiculous blog post. Only 6% of clinical studies list what their placebo was, so the conclusion from that is that there is a concerted effort by drug companies to unscrupulously modified the outcomes of their studies by choosing biologically active placebos. That's a bit of a stretch. Typically what is done for a study is that drug company will manufacture the drug for the study in tablet form, com…
If you don't provide enough information in your paper to repeat the experiment (and get the same results!!), then it's not good science. Good scientific studies need to be repeatable and need to provide enough information to do it.
And even if people don't want to repeat the full experiment, being able to review the details of how it was done will help them spot mistakes. You can't have things like "peer review" without saying what you did.
So this is a serious problem, even if the rest is breathless hype.
Having worked in the pharma industry, this article is complete bullshit. For double and triple blind (the third blind comes from not even the pharma company knowing the blinding details until after the trial) placebo design is an extraordinarily complex undertaking. A placebo must match the drug in physical appearance, taste, texture, density, state (liquid/solid/gas), and anticipated side effects. Any material diffe…
Once the placebo has been designed to 'match the drug in physical appearance, taste, texture, density, state (liquid/solid/gas), and anticipated side effects' it should still be described in the final paper.
Having worked in the pharma industry, this article is complete bullshit. For double and triple blind (the third blind comes from not even the pharma company knowing the blinding details until after the trial) placebo design is an extraordinarily complex undertaking. A placebo must match the drug in physical appearance, taste, texture, density, state (liquid/solid/gas), and anticipated side effects. Any material diffe…
I think you may have missed the point. You have stated that the article 'pointed out a few random oversights', but the actual point of the article is that _there is no data_. How can anyone, including you, know how effective the choice of placebo ingredients are if they aren't disclosed? It doesn't seem an undue burden to ask that the placebo ingredients be documented so that their effect on the study, which is criti…
When you submit a drug for approval at the FDA, you need to list in exacting detail exactly how trials were run, including how they were blinded. The ingredients and form of the placebo are critical for this.
The paper referenced in this blog post examined journal articles to determine if the composition of the placebo was reported. Journal article are notoriously lacking in details and they have to be since no one want to read an article with pages upon pages of details.
If his comment was "Hey, you guys who write papers on clinical trials, it would be awesome if you'd list the placebo composition, since I'd be more likely to believe your findings" I would say "fair point".
But the blog post says "Hey! Drug companies are trying to pull a fast on all of you! Beware of what's in your medicine cabinet" which is a completely ridiculous statement. This "missing information" is available to the people that matter (the FDA).
This is truly an example of making a mountain out of a molehill.
This seems like a ridiculous blog post. Only 6% of clinical studies list what their placebo was, so the conclusion from that is that there is a concerted effort by drug companies to unscrupulously modified the outcomes of their studies by choosing biologically active placebos. That's a bit of a stretch. Typically what is done for a study is that drug company will manufacture the drug for the study in tablet form, com…
They should list placebo ingredients after the trial is done so it's possible to duplicate the trial and get the same results, right? If you don't provide enough information in your paper to repeat the experiment (and get the same results!!), then it's not good science. Good scientific studies need to be repeatable and need to provide enough information to do it. And even if people don't want to repeat the full exper…