Posted by Klavot on April 22, 2007, at 8:47:35
In reply to Interesting read if you have some time to kill., posted by football on April 22, 2007, at 2:52:56
One form of placebo remission is psycho-psomatic remission, i.e. physical remission induced through psychiatric effects. When dealing with psychiatric illness, the distinction between pharmacologically induced remission and psycho-psomatic remission thus becomes blurred. I do not think that psycho-psomatic remission should be regarded purely as placebo remission when dealing with psychiatric illnesses. I believe that placebo-medicating a psychiatric patient *does* constitute a legitimate form of treatment.
The comparison should be (IMHO): what are the remission rates for depression patients (a) receiving fuoxetine, and (b) not receiving *any* treatment. Because even if fluoxetine is useless as an antidepressant and it only induces a placebo effect, the only way a patient will benefit from that placebo effect is by having the drug prescribed to them through a doctor.
Perhaps there should be more comparison trials: take for example all five or six SSRIs and administer them in the same trial under the same conditions to a homogeneous group of depression patients. If the Zoloft group for example experiences a 60 % remission rate and the Prozac group only 40 %, then we might say that, on average, not only is Zoloft a better drug than Prozac, but that, assuming Prozac does not actually aggrevate depression, this means Zoloft does posses a super-placebo treatment effect.
Klavot
poster:Klavot
thread:752317
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070419/msgs/752342.html