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Yup, the placebo effect can be really powerful. Placebo saline injections are documented to sometimes cure even terminal cancer if the patient is led to believe they're powerful cure drugs. In one case, the patient later discovered it had just been saline, and his tumors returned and he died.
If you're thinking, "gee that makes it sound like our current understanding of science is incomplete" then yeah, pretty much. However, mainstream doctors and researchers tend to not want to think about this (addiction to current-era established assumptions/beliefs) and while they'll happily discuss placebos for simpler things like pain reduction that ARE reasonably explainable under our current scientific paradigm, they do the "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" bit and quickly change the subject when you start to point out and ask about the cases that are NOT. These cases, being documented fact, presumably WILL be explainable someday under a future, expanded understanding of science and medicine, but under today's worldview and assumptions they are not.
So sure, placebo could be a big factor here, that's why we do the controlled studies. However, a large number of anecdotal successes still carry some weight, just not definitive weight.
The cool thing is, both these two drugs were safety tested and FDA-approved decades ago, so that part of the process is already done. Effectiveness evaluation for this new use, however, is still pending.
Stay tuned!
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Edited by user
6 years ago |
Reason: Not specified