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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Placebos can cause cancer (?!)
Message-ID: <1589@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 19:30:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: aecom.1589
Posted: Tue May 14 19:30:36 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 01:07:31 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 43


	Some years ago in the United States it was argued that since Rheumatoid
arthritis was caused by the body's immune system attacking itself that 
suppressing the immune system would relieve some of the symptoms of the 
disease.
	This was tried, and sure enough, about 30% of the people recovered
from Rheumatoid arthritis during the course of the study.
	
	Now in England, they didn't like the way the study was done, so they
got 60 people with Rheumatoid arthritis and immunosuppressed half of them. 
The other half got a placebo - a fake pill.
	As in the US,  30% treated got better.  Unfortunately for the study,
30% of the placebo group got better as well.  (This may help to explain why
copper bracelets help about 1/3 of all arthritics -- about 1/3 will be
helped by anything.)  Therefore, immunosuppression was declared a worthless
treatment -- why treat the patient and increase the risk of infection if
just telling the patient that you're treating them will do just as well.

	Several years later, the evidence began to accumulate that treatment
was some immunosuppressive drugs increased the risk of cancer.  The physicians
in England said, "Oh no, we exposed these patients to needless risk, etc."
and then they went back to follow the cohort they had studied for 5 years.
	Much to their dismay, 5 of the 60 people had developed cancer within
the 10 years post-study. This is much higher than would be expected.

	However, much to their suprise and relief, all of the 5 cancers were
in the placebo group and none were in the group that actually got the drug
that was suspect.  In other words, all 5 cancers were caused by random 
chance and had nothing to do with the study. 
	Had chance fallen the other way,  the drug would most probably have 
been banned and lawsuits continuing to this day.

	Does placebo cause cancer?  No, of course not.  It cannot.  If starch
and gelatin caused cancer we'd all be shapeless masses of lymphoma by now.

	Thus ends part three of my didactic diatribe in partial defense of
Western Allopathic medicine.  Comments always welcome.


-- 
				Craig Werner
				!philabs!aecom!werner
		What do you expect?  Watermelons are out of season!