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Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!osiris!eric
From: eric@osiris.UUCP (Eric Bergan)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Placebos CANNOT cause cancer!!!
Message-ID: <349@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-May-85 11:33:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: osiris.349
Posted: Sun May 26 11:33:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 27-May-85 01:42:46 EDT
References: <1589@aecom.UUCP> <1273@hammer.UUCP> <1550@amdahl.UUCP> <1685@aecom.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 24

> 	First seifert@mako didn't get the statistics. Now ems@amdahl is
> blaming everything on miniscule amounts of dye.
> 
> 	OK, this is getting ridiculous.  If the packaging caused cancer, then
> you would expect people in the experimental group to get cancer, too.  Also,
> how much difference will one pill make in total chemical intake (it was one
> pill/day)  Two, chemical carcinogens tend to be organ specific - in this study
> 5 patients got five different cancers -- all of them common in the population.
> We CAN be sure. They didn't get the cancer by increasing their total dye
> intake by .0001% of daily intake.
> 

	Actually, after reading some of these postings, I decided to ask
my boss (ex-head of Oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital). He said that at various
times, there have been movements within the medical community that did believe
that cancer was psychosomatic. Therefore, if the patients for some reason
believed that the placebo could cause cancer, it might cause them to have
cancer. He does not personally fall into this camp, but he did not laugh
at it, either.

-- 

					eric
					...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!osiris!eric