Subject:  Re Anecdotal info (fwd)
Date:     Wed, 18 Mar 1998 033843 -0600 (CST)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 10:11:26 +0100
From: Per Dalen 
To: "Roy L. Beavers" , emfguru@hotmail.com
Cc: Bo Walhjalt 
Subject: Re: Anecdotal info (fwd)

Mark Millman's comments on "scientific proof" in medicine were very much to
the point. As I know very well from 45 years in the medical culture,
thinking in these matters is stereotyped and superficial. The rules
condemning anecdotal information, praising controlled, randomized, double
blind experiments etcetera are rational and perhaps necessary in their
original context, but the problems we have to solve today are too complex
for them. Therefore progress is no longer made in real-life situations, but
in laboratories, where experiments are possible. Medicine is being
impoverished by this, and difficult problems are left unsolved.

The doctrine of placebo is very central to all this. It has only been
important for 40+ years, but is now taken for granted in spite of the fact
that there is little or no proof of the existence of strong placebo
effects. I can recommend an article by G S Kienle and H Kiene in J Clin
Epidemiol 1997, 50(12):1311-1318: "The powerful placebo effect: fact or
fiction?" For those of you who read German, I particularly recommend
references 21 and 22 of this paper. Devastating criticism.

At 18:23 17-3-98 -0600, Roy L. Beavers wrote:
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 09:56:58 -0800
>From: Mark Millman 
>To: "Roy L. Beavers" 
>Subject: Re: Anecdotal info

Per Dalen, M.D., Ph.D.
Per Dalen 



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