Posted: May 21, 2010 7:11 pm
generalsemanticist wrote:It is truly sad to see this obsession with "double blind" studies. It seems like a futile attempt to establish a one cause => one effect model which is very simplistic.
No, double blind studies are done so that what we are testing the effectiveness or lack thereof of the drug itself, not other factors, such as psychological factors. It only tries to establish whether or not a drug has a statistically significant effect or not.
It is, however, very useful for companies with drug patents to make large amounts of money.
No, profit hungry drug companies hate controlled, double-blind experiments, because then they must actually produce a drug that works in order to make money. If it does not work, it won't pass the experiments. If it does not pass the experiments, it won't get put on the market. If it is not on the market, it cannot sell. If it cannot sell, it won't make any amount of money.
It is very ironic that you use the Big Pharma gambit, yet fail to understand that the CAM industry ("Big Placebo") is a 60 billion dollar industry per year for things that are demonstrably useless. Both Big Pharma and Big Placebo makes lots of money. The question is; who produces drugs that actually work? Big Pharma generally does; Big Placebo generally does not.
It is completely irrelevant if a person or company make a large amount of money; what matters is whether or not the drug did what it promised to do.