OT: keyboard layouts

[Henry Spencer]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, William Park wrote:
> > Placebo effect is powerful, and it's the reason why tests of things like
> > new drugs absolutely must be done as "double-blind" tests:  neither the
> > patients nor the experimenters know which patients are getting the real
> > pills and which are getting the dummies, until the experiment is over and
> > the sealed envelopes are opened. 
> 
> Those who died were given placebo, and those who got better were given
> real drug.  Or, was it the other way around... :-)

Well, at least the large-scale experiments typically also have third-party
monitors, who know which group is which and are watching for signs of
strong adverse effects (death certainly qualifies :-)).  This is why you
occasionally hear of a clinical trial being halted early -- it means that
the real-drug group was having a suspiciously large number of heart
attacks or whatever, and the monitors sounded the alarm. 

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org

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