Let’s be honest about placebo | Ed Halliwell
Rather than dismissing treatments that use placebo as hocus pocus, we should learn what we can from this powerful effect Though it’s rarely treated as a religious issue, the alternative medicine debate has a lot in common with the God versus science wrangle. Just as religious belief is scoffed at by atheists, so “traditional healer” services, while providing comfort and relief for many, are prone to come into collision with rationalist claims that they’re based on fantastical faith-based premises, that they prey on the delusions of the vulnerable, and do no meaningful good. We saw the latest round of this ding-dong last week, in the wake of a study that claimed to have found a plausible mechanism for a pain relief mechanism in acupuncture.
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Guardian-Health
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