Newsgroup: it.scienza.biologia
Titolo: Doppiocieco e studi vs placebo: una bufala?

http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3656
Questa è la conclusione a cui sono giunti alcuni ricercatori
dell’Università della California, che hanno pubblicato le loro
scoperte nel numero di ottobre 2010 di Annals of Internal Medicine.
Hanno revisionato 167 test basati su placebo pubblicati su riviste
mediche peer-reviewed tra il 2008 e il 2009, trovando che il 92% di
essi non ha mai descritto gli ingredienti dei placebo utilizzati.
le vostre critiche a questa ricerca?
fuzzy

la ricerca è questa
http://www.annals.org/content/153/8/532.full
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Alcuni commenti
Wayne B Jonas, President and CEO John A. Ives, John R. Moffett
Samueli Institute
Golomb and colleagues should be commended for lifting the hood off the
words "placebo composition" and looking underneath (1). We have argued
that the term placebo is problematic because it bears negative
connotations and instills confusion among patients, health care
workers and scientists. It also obscures important information needed
to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments (2;3).
However, in their discussion on the possible active effects of
placebos, Golomb et al. neglect to mention a potentially important
confounder in placebos given by injection; namely silica contamination
from the glass vials in which the drugs and placebos are often stored.
Silicates and borate leach from glass containers into the solutions
stored in them reaching micromolar levels, and the levels in solution
are increased substantially by heat sterilization (4). If sterile
saline packaged in glass vials is used as placebo for studies where
the test drug is injected intravenously or intramuscularly, micromolar
levels of silica and borate are being administered to the control
group. Silica has a number of direct biological effects at levels
found in solutions stored in glass vials (5). In addition, we have
shown that the levels of silica leaching from glass vials are high
enough to stabilize enzyme reactions in water and therefore are likely
to interact with many pharmaceuticals in solution (4). Since enzymes,
immunizations, insulin, some pharmaceuticals and other substances are
frequently stored for significant periods in glass vials or bottles,
we believe the silica concentration needs to be carefully analyzed in
both the placebo and active arms of studies that deliver treatments by
intramuscular or intravenous routes.
Reference List
(1) Golomb BA, Erickson LC, Koperski S, Sack D, Enkin M, Howick J.
What's in placebos: who knows? Analysis of randomized, controlled
trials. Ann Intern Med 2010; 153(8):532-535.
(2) Walach H, Jonas WB. Placebo research: the evidence base for
harnessing self-healing capacities. J Altern Complement Med 2004; 10
Suppl 1:S103-S112.
(3) Moerman DE, Jonas WB. Deconstructing the placebo effect and
finding the meaning response. Ann Intern Med 2002; 136(6):471-476.
(4) Ives JA, Moffett JR, Arun P, Lam D, Todorov TI, Brothers AB et al.
Enzyme stabilization by glass-derived silicates in glass-exposed
aqueous solutions. Homeopathy 2010; 99(1):15-24.
(5) Zou S, Ireland D, Brooks RA, Rushton N, Best S. The effects of
silicate ions on human osteoblast adhesion, proliferation, and
differentiation. J Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater 2009; 90(1):
123-130.

altro parere
-----------------------
Ann Elin Morkrid, Master in Chemistry. Now holding an administrative
position in a University College
First: It has always been a huge ethical problem that patients have
been exposed to randomized selection, with the result that a certain
percentage of them has been treated with a non-effective placebo,
despite the fact that the patients were seriously ill and in need of
medical treatment. This while at the same time the rest of the
patients were given what was believed to be "a proper" medical
treatment.
Secondly: It becomes an even bigger ethical problem when the placebo
in some cases now have been shown to actually have had adverse effects
on these patients health, by not being acceptable zero point-standards
for the actual medications on trial.
Thirdly: It is also of ethical concern when the patients having the
luck of being selected for the "proper" medical treatment, have
actually been subjected to medication where its positive effect has
been overestimated, non- existing, or even of the negative kind; and
all because the treatment effects has been compared to a placebo which
was not a non-active zero- point-substance, but rather a substance
having negative health effects, and thereby in the comparison ended up
documenting a false positive medical healing effect of the medication.
Conclusion: We now have no way of knowing which medicines are being
beneficial to the patients being treated, and which are having no
effects at all, or which are actually having negative effects on the
patients health.
With this report, the whole of pharmaceutical research have lost its
credibility. It may or may not be a cynical act by the individual
researcher and/or by his/her research group or leader. It is, however,
not easy to make excuses for the pharmaceutical companies, since the
actual research as a common universal procedure, should have been
submitted to meticulous quality control by independant researchers
hving no bonds to the company, before a final approval was being
given, and the medication was being introduced to the medical
community. This report is weakening the whole foundation wall of all
pharmaceutical research. It is from now on not possible to trust any
existing information about the effects and side-effects of
pharmaceutical medicine. Unfair as it may be, this will affect honest
and dishonest researchers alike!
Alternative medicine with remedies extracted from biological flowers,
herbs, shrubs, trees and berries developed by nature over millions of
years, and used and eaten by both mankind and animals since the
beginning of time, suddenly seems preferable to the unreliable
medicines made by the pharmaceutical industry. Maybe the way out of
this newborn dilemma is to channel big money into formal scientific
research documenting the effects of these nature-made remedies,
instead of into the allegedly "well documented" but still highly
questionable pharmaceutical chemicals with all their well-documented
side- effects. However, big money cannot be expected to originate from
the pharmaceutical sector, since natural remedies originating from
nature is the inheritance of all humanity, and as such cannot be
patented.
In Norway an investigation has just shown that about half the
population prefers alternative medicine and natural remedies to
treatment in the public healthcare sector where doctors are using
allopathic treatment with pharmaceutical medicine. Considering the
lack of research funding that has been a major hindrance for
documentation of natural remedies, there is still an amazing amount of
documentation about the positive health-effects that these remedies do
have, as well as information about side-effects and restrictions for
use. We can just imagine the effect a support of big money might have
within the alternative health care sector.

 le vostre critiche a questa ricerca?
Nessuna critica. Finalmente è chiaro come faccia l'antipertensivo
omeopatico Statisticulinium 64CH a mostrare un'efficacia del 20%
rispetto al placebo in uno studio a doppio cieco su centomila
soggetti: basta che il placebo consista in pillole di liquirizia.
Ovviamente lo stesso trucco vale per la Statisticulina brevettata
da qualche potente casa farmaceutica.
Bye,
  *GB* 

 ha scritto:
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lo stesso vale anche per i farmaci non omeopatici (o allopatici)?
fuzzy