http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/part-two-of-my-radio-4-show-on-the-placebo-effect/#comments

Pleeeease can someone put up the second placebo mp3 file as I cannot get bbc streaming audio!!

In the first twenty minutes, the mathematical significance of test result statistics seems to be taken as read, i.e. that all the experiments produced clear meaningful results. To be honest, I’d be quickly out of my depth if you did go into it.

@gazza – “Presumably it’s as evidence based an analysis as he is used to doing – know the results you want and marshall the facts accordingly”
Haha – spot on.

@Marten – “Bad English writing skills aside, this goes to show he has never even looked at Ben’s blog.”
I’m glad someone made that comment. Another one that’s spot on. I wouldn’t have dared criticise his Bad English though – particularly given my claim that “Lee Crandall Park might not be a bad palce to start” looking into unblinded placebo provision.

If he has friends that know how sulky and bitter that review appears to people I hope they tell him – I’d hate to think he really was like that….

Why does Amazon already show such a heavy discount on the RRP of the book? It’s half price and not even printed yet! I hope that doesn’t affect the author’s share of the takings.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Ben Goldacre’s literary style, July 1, 2008
By Roger Coghill – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Goldacre is a hack journalist who couldn’t make it as a doctor, writing for the Guardian (a minor circulation UK newspaper) where he weekly spews out attacks on alternative medicine and lampoons in a very biased way anything that can make him a living, usually leaving out the most salient facts for the sake of a good slagging story. Funny he never attacks the many disasters perpetrated by mainstream big pharma. His book isn’t worth the paper that Harper Collins (who are also past publishers of my books) have foolishly printed it on. I wouldn’t bother to open its covers, frankly, even if someone gave me a copy for free. Pity that Amazon don’t have a negative star award system.

Hasn’t read it and apparently knows all about it. Idiot!

I’ve now got a newly branded pill bottle bought originally at discount aspirin prices – I’m looking forward to the improved potency!

That paper you flagged up for me describing a small sample of subjects who knowingly received placebos just shows what a complex mind game can be set up between the receivers and the administrators of a pill popping environment!

So a few of them had improved apparently because they persuaded themselves there really was an active ingredient present; others improved for a range of reasons despite believing the pills were placebo but I would hazard a guess it was to do with the ‘ceremony’ of the interaction between testers and subjects referred to in Ben’s radio programme. Fascinating.

The Science Show, The Health Report, All in the Mind, In Conversation, Ockham’s Razor, etc. All worth a listen.

haha yeah they’re great, and almost all of these are presented by my uncle. it’s a conspiracy! weirdly enough i don’t think we’ve ever talked about doing science stuff (not seen him for years, he’s over in a couple of weeks tho). all in the mind is great too.

If you want to know about trials where subjects know they are receiving a sugar pill, Lee Crandall Park might not be a bad palce to start: http://www.leecrandallparkmd.net/pdfs/placebo.pdf

Cheers,
jdc.

What was the name of the branded painkiller used in the painkiller trials? I want to write it on my generic aspirin bottle if it’s that effective!

I’d be interested to know the effect on trial outcomes of subjects believing that there is a significant chance of them receiving placebos? I presume that the placebo effect is non-existant if the subject knows that they have a 100% certainty of receiving a placebo. But what if they are told there is, say, a 50% chance, or 25% chance, of receiving a placebo. Does this ‘doubt’ significantly reduce the effect?

A nit-picking continuation of studies in this fascinating area perhaps….

I also agree with your comments above about radio4 – they seem to have become the home of well-made science programmes, and also generally cover science-based news items much better than anyone else, so perhaps it seems wrong to complain, but for me, that only seems to reinforce how ‘specialist interest’, and ghettoised science features have become.

It seems increasingly rare to even get a science documentary on the main TV channels now, and when you do get one, they seem so petrified of boring or perplexing their viewers that they throw every cheap trick in the book at one. Journalists going on ‘voyages of discovery’, atmospheric music and shots of test-tubes, constant reiterations of what has come before; anything, it seems, rather than letting the science, and the scientists, speak for themselves.

Surely the success of TED.com has shown that there are plenty of people who are engaged by new ideas, who actually want to be told about sciency stuff? Take back TV for the geeks, I say!