I am not great at understanding all the nuances of a good study, but I think it's past time that "placebo effects" are viewed as an undesirable confounding factor in research. We now know enough about the Mind/Body connection to realize that the placebo effect can be more powerfully healing than many other therapies used in mainstream medicine.  
Typically, the placebo effect 
accounts for 35-45% of people showing improvement. (Refer to the classic Prozac study) I think it's high time we recognize what newer research is pointing out; our minds have tremendous ability to heal (or block the healing of) our physical bodies.

Holly McSpadden, IBCLC

 from my iPhone

> On Sep 18, 2016, at 8:06 AM, TERESA PITMAN <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> I have to disagree with the statements about science. It is very true that many of the studies that are done are not done well or are biased because of industry influence and funding, and that many physicians are not following the science that is there. But that's about problems with the system, not the science. We need good science!! And we need it urgently. We simply can't rely on only our own observations and experiences. They can be the impetus for research, but they are not the same as research. 
> I appreciated the chance to see the study on CST for neck pain, which was quite interesting. My concern with it was that all the "sham" treatment was done by one practitioner and while it was supposed to be a gentle (harmless) treatment, more of the patients who experienced the sham treatment had problems like headaches and increased pain. That makes me wonder if that practitioner was unintentionally causing them some problems during his sham treatments, making it difficult to do a good comparison to the CST. It might have helped to have another control group that had no treatment, but then of course you run into possible placebo effect issues. Certainly, it can be challenging to design good studies to eliminate all these possible issues. But we need to keep trying to do so.
> Teresa Pitman
> 
> 
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