IH considering counterclaims

    @Jed


    Anesthesia may not be fully understood although more and more about it is being learned. But it is very extremely unlike LENR. The effect can be produced at will with extreme, completely reproducible reliability with only a few, very unusual exceptions. If that were not true, modern surgery would be entirely impossible. There could not be anything less like LENR than anesthesia.


    The problem with LENR isn't a lack of understanding or theory. As Cam noted, you need to have something to need a theory for other than scattered claimed results in obscure journals, most of which date from around 1990. Rossi, Defkalion, and perhaps Miley, Nanospire and Brillouin were that hope with claims of high power reproducible LENR. And where are most of those now?

    Quote

    If we would account for "the get better after time" hypothesis, then double blind studies for medicaments are very likely nonsense...


    That is very unclear. What do you mean? The "get better without the medication regardless of how" is why there are double blind studies to start with.

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    How do you I know you did what? Screw up "your" birth place?


    If you look up the George Hody who is related to Thermonetics in the appropriate paid database the birthplace you stated is not his. So if I understand you correctly, you are George Hody, but you don't know where George Hody was born. Very nice. Brainless twit.


    Shane, what suggested to you that this is the nonsensical troll who used to sign as "GW" or Greenwin on ecatnews.com?


    Mary. I don't know why you feel the need to insult me. You are displaying an unhealthy interest in my birthplace (under a Norwegian bridge), my age (which I don't like to discuss), and my former company (Thermonetics Inc).


    Do you search for every member on the forum in this "paid database" of yours? That doesn't really sound like normal behaviour to me.


    I would much prefer it if you just left me alone. I am not sure what I have done to offend you, other than point out that a standard Nissan 370Z motor can produce a megawatt of 'output', as compared to that silly video you found of a massive turbine generator.


    Best Regards,
    George


    PS. The opposite of a placebo is a 'nocebo', and is equally as fascinating.

    Well, you see, "George Hody", people have said I am you. Or anyway that my real name is "George Hody". It would be interesting to have the real George Hody post here. But I do not think you are the real George Hody based on the crappola you wrote alone, not to mention you don't seem to know where you were born! And by the way, while you can use an anonymous pseudonym on a forum, identity theft is a punishable crime, pretty much anywhere, these days. Not that it is likely anyone cares about your very inept attempt. The possibility you are GW or some other puerile troll is interesting though. I wonder what Shane detected. I hope he will tell us.


    By the way, does trying to stalk posters for their "real" identities somehow help Rossi's case? If so, how? If I really am the real George Hody, then I know far more about calorimetry than Rossi does. Suppose my real name is George Hody, how does this make Rossi more likely to be telling the truth or LENR be more likely to be real?


    I am a bit surprised that Alan and other moderators delete what they consider libel when it is simply opinion (often supported by fact) while they allow what appears to be blatant identity theft.

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    @Jed


    Anesthesia may not be fully understood although more and more about it is being learned. But it is very extremely unlike LENR. The effect can be produced at will with extreme, completely reproducible reliability with only a few, very unusual exceptions. If that were not true, modern surgery would be entirely impossible. There could not be anything less like LENR than anesthesia.


    The problem with LENR isn't a lack of understanding or theory. As Cam noted, you need to have something to need a theory for other than scattered claimed results in obscure journals, most of which date from around 1990. Rossi, Defkalion, and perhaps Miley, Nanospire and Brillouin were that hope with claims of high power reproducible LENR. And where are most of those now?


    I need to learn to be more precise in my statements! I agree with MY that anesthesia and LENR are not in the same "ball park" and that was not what I was attempting to convey. My thought was that doctors do "practice" procedures that they do not fully understand. LENR researchers are in a field where very little is understood. Bloggers are blogging with even less education on the subject! While I was not trying to equate the two by measure of rule, I was attempting to compare the two disciplines. One being more mature (medicine) and the other in it's infancy. Medical practice used to be barbaric! It has come a long way! I am glad that blood letting, common use of arsenic and frontal lobotomies are not so common anymore! I HOPE that in a few years, LENR will also be more mature and as you put it " produced at will with extreme, completely reproducible reliability .." Who knows?


    By the way... "I would rather have a bottle in front of me.... than have a frontal lobotomy!" :P

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    Well, you see, George Hody, people have said I am you... But I do not think you are the real George Hody


    Mary, as a doctor, I would advise you not to listen to these "voices" that say you are other people, or that other people are you. Or that I am not real. My diagnosis would be that you have a form of Depersonalization disorder, or perhaps Capgras syndrome... Have you noticed any excessive anxiety recently? Or maybe suffered an extreme trauma that could have brought this on?


    Quote

    If I really am the real George Hody, then I know far more about calorimetry than Rossi does


    Mary, like many other medical doctors, I am also a "world class expert in calorimetry", an honor I was awarded awarded myself after writing two basic papers on the subject in the late seventies. Hence, if you were me, then yes, you would know everything about this topic. However I believe it is more important for you to disabuse yourself of these odd delusions, in order to accelerate your potential recovery from one, or possibly both, of the maladies mentioned above.


    Also I fear that your odd belief system extends to your ideas about the law: "Identity theft" isn't a crime anywhere worth visiting. Perhaps you are getting confused with "Identity fraud", which is when a criminal uses another person's details to obtain a pecuniary advantage. If you would like to learn more about this sort of thing, I suggest you start by reading the supreme court judgment from the case of Hustler vs Falwell.

    Quote from Jack Cole

    It is not the same as giving no treatment in a wide variety of situations. There is a real and powerful effect.


    Not according to the NEJM article I cited, and other recent research.


    That was the conclusion drawn many decades ago, but those tests have been re-examined. It appears they did not take into account the fact that people often get better with no treatment. It turns out "no treatment" works as well as a placebo, so the placebo probably does nothing. In recent tests, one group of patients were send home with no treatment and no placebo, and they recovered at the same rate as the patients given placebos.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Not according to the NEJM article I cited, and other recent research.


    That is interesting, but it is far from the whole story. It would be a grave mistake to exclude placebo controls or to use no-treatment controls.


    Consider that the placebo effect has been getting stronger.


    http://www.wired.com/2009/08/f…o-effect/?currentPage=all


    Take one example of a study (and previous metanalyses) on the effectiveness of antidepressants showing that 75 to 80% of the effect could be explained by placebo. The actual drug effect was tiny.


    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/


    The thinking that the placebo effect is not real, or even a unitary phenomenon, is an old way of thinking in many fields. There is a complex set of phenomena and factors (only one of which is recovery without treatment). Saying it is not real is kind of like saying psychological and emotional factors can't affect physiology, or in psychiatry trying to say that belief doesn't affect emotional conditions.


    There is far greater evidence for the placebo effect being real than there is for LENR being real IMHO.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    In recent tests, one group of patients were send home with no treatment and no placebo, and they recovered at the same rate as the patients given placebos.


    It would also be likely incorrect that there could be such a thing as "no treatment." People will likely find alternatives (even placebo alternatives) if not given treatment for a distressing condition. Would you sit around on your hands if you were experiencing difficulty?

    Quote from Jack Cole

    It would also be likely incorrect that there could be such a thing as "no treatment." People will likely find alternatives (even placebo alternatives) if not given treatment for a distressing condition.


    As I recall, in one study they were told, "don't worry about that; it will get better on its own." In another study, in the U.K., patients were told essentially nothing. Just sent home.


    There had to be follow-up interviews to establish whether they got better or not. I suppose the follow-up questions included: "Did you seek treatment elsewhere? Did you treat the problem yourself?" I would have asked that. I do not recall the details. I read about this some years ago.

    Quote from Jack Cole

    in the U.K., patients were told essentially nothing. Just sent home.



    If so, then that is akin to an hypnotic suggestion. It is not an inactive suggestion.


    Yup. That is why in the follow-up British study they said nothing. They did not want the patients to be encouraged. That's kind of cruel. It verges on malpractice.


    It is a difficult problem to sort out, but I think the data indicates no measurable effect.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    It is a difficult problem to sort out, but I think the data indicates no measurable effect.


    The researchers say they didn't think there was a measurable effect based on their sample of studies, which seems to be a somewhat odd and small collection (100 studies). As I have already pointed out, and referenced, other studies strongly support the existence of a measurable effect.


    When I was researching ideas for my dissertation, this is one area that I studied. As the one article I referenced points out, there have been numerous studies demonstrating the placebo effect with varying degrees of effect based on such factors as the color of a pill, placebo injections have bigger effects than placebo pills. Sham surgeries also demonstrate the effect. I remember reading about a particular knee surgery that had been performed on many thousands of people that was later discovered to be no better than a sham surgery.


    As noted by other researchers in the story you cite:
    "Strom and others, however, do caution that the study has several limitations. The data available to the authors is just not enough to make any changes in our general beliefs regarding the placebo effect, states David Savitz, chair of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health."


    To an extent, I agree that many conditions may find only a subjective effect and the effects may wane for certain conditions. But to assert there is no real effect ignores a mountain of research on mind-body relationships.


    I would say that the study you cite is interesting and contributes to the understanding. It would be a grave mistake for researchers and patients should placebo controls be eliminated (even if you think the effect is small and only short lived).

    • Official Post

    a group of french doctors organized some "transparent placebo" medecine.
    It was presen,ted as absolutely not active medecine, mostly
    - blue water, used for example to calm people
    - red water used to give energy and alike
    it was clear it have and could have no effect except the placebo.


    it was noticed that it worked for a big minority of patients with annoying but not clearly curable problems.


    my position is that placebo medicine (non evidence-based medicine) is just the answer of society when the traditional non-medicine like exorcism, white and black magic, sorcery, ceremonies, religions, village/building social solidarity, are no more available because of social or cognitive changes.


    Religion for example is recognized as anti-depressing, like praying fight dark ideas which build depression. magic thought fight stress, allows people to be more optimistic, less afraid of failure. Since the secret of success is to try the unthinkable, with some limits that most people enforce anyway (you can believe in supernatural forces but refuse to try flying from 10th floor), it works.


    sometime stress relieves have a medical effect like anxiolytic do, but most of the time it just allows people to behave better, enjoy better what would anyway happen, try what they would not have tried and that would have succeeded anyway if tried.
    One things that people oftent don't try unless they have a placebo, is just waiting that the problem solves itself.


    a french joke is :
    - without treatment a flu is cured in 7 days usually
    - with placebo medecine it is solved in only 1 week

    Quote from Jack Cole

    I remember an interesting story about a physician training medical students. He gave them all a test to see if they would make good doctors. He had each one individually demonstrate the procedure for determining the presence of appendicitis. The ones that immediately pressed exactly on the spot where the appendix is located on the dummy, were told they did not have the requisite sensitivity to be a good doctor. It hurts the patient too much to press directly on the spot when a person has appendicitis. The sensitive doctor starts some distance away from the spot and gently presses towards the place where the appendix is located. People who don't have that approach to other people would probably be better off outside of a helping profession, and the patients would be better off too.


    Nice story, but I doubt that either you or the apocryphal physician has worked a on a busy ward before. With appendicitis, one or two firm finger jabs directly to the affected area are the fastest way to effect a proper diagnosis.


    You see, as with most illnesses you can divide the patients into three groups: the malingerers, the hypochondriacs, and the genuinely ill. The vast majority of people fall into one of the first two categories.


    Jabbing a malingerer in the appendix generally elicits no response other than a sharp intake of breath. Hypochondriacs will mostly shout out, often slightly before you even stick them with your finger. Only the genuine appendicitis sufferer will emit a guttural drawn-out groan, instantly letting the doctor know that he/she is not faking it.


    Admittedly, this is not the exact diagnostic procedure that we were taught at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but in my opinion it is best to be reflexively skeptical of every new patient/malingerer.

    Quote from George Hody

    Nice story, but I doubt that either you or the apocryphal physician has worked on a busy ward before. With appendicitis, one or two firm finger jabs directly to the affected area are the fastest way to effect a proper diagnosis.


    You see, as with most illnesses you can divide the patients into three groups: the malingerers, the hypochondriacs, and the genuinely ill. The vast majority of people fall into one of the first two categories.


    George, I'm sure you have helped a lot of people. I hope you won't be too offended by some unsolicited observations and advice. I don't doubt that one must develop a hard exterior in that type of work. But I think it would not take too long to take an extra 20 seconds here and there to be more compassionate (if only to yourself). It is easy to get burnt out when faced with too much pain, death, suffering, or mistrustful behavior. I know I have let my cynicism get too strong at various times in my past (yes--in part due to the nature of my work). It is better to back up from that edge and take care of yourself IMHO.


    P.S., you were not too far from my stomping grounds at the U of I. :)

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