🚀 go-pugleaf

King & Associates Int'l <kai@5pillars.com> wrote in message
news:39708803_7@news.oanet.com...
> Deacon:

[snip]

> Well, in human trials you are absolutely correct.  That is why we do
> demonstrations on horses and other animals, this eliminates the
"placebo"
> element entirely. Unlike "suggestible and easily mislead ...
humans",
> animals have no concept of the "false" effect and have not the
mental
> capacity to be fooled into thinking something works, for them it
either
> works or it doesn't.

The problem with animal trials is that animals can respond to a
treatment differently than human beings.  For example, while morphine
dulls human senses, it excites cats (Give me an hour or two in the
library, and I should be able to track down the ancient issue of Omni
magazine I read that in).

In fact, I believe the correct procedure with people to compensate for
the placebo effect is to test the treatment with two groups--one given
the actual treatment, and the other given a placebo.  A double blind
adds to the effectiveness because the person dealing directly with the
test subjects isn't aware of who's getting the placebo and who isn't.

--

John Fleming
Edmonton, Alberta

email:     johnfgh@nice.ab.ca (nice should be ecn, remove 'gh')
web pages: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/6070
           http://www.ecn.ab.ca/~johnf

- Only if you have been in the deepest valley can you
  ever know how  magnificent it is to be on the highest
  mountain.

                                   R.M.Nixon  1913-1994

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