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From: ems@amdahl.UUCP (ems)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Placebos can cause cancer (?!)
Message-ID: <1549@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-May-85 17:11:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.1549
Posted: Tue May 21 17:11:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 22-May-85 02:44:57 EDT
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> 	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

Perhaps not so obviously an 'on course not.'.  That sounds so
final, so sure.  Was there no coloring in the placebo capsule?
Was there nothing in the packaging and delivery materials?  Was
this truely chance?  I don't know.  I would wager that you
also cannot *really* know.  We can only make a hypothesis and test it.

It would be interesting to repeat the test with several different
placebos... could explain a large number of anomalies in testing
if the color in the gelatin of our 'placebos' was not inert...

-- 

E. Michael Smith  ...!{hplabs,ihnp4,amd,nsc}!amdahl!ems

Tilapia Zilli is the way and the light.

This is the obligatory disclaimer of everything.