OT: keyboard layouts

[Marcus Brubaker]

On Fri, 2003-12-12 at 16:15, Henry Spencer wrote:
> 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. 

Actually, on occasion, long term studies are halted early for the exact
opposite reason.  In fact recently a 10 year study of a certain drug
treatment on breast cancer was halted 6 years in so that those on the
placebo could take the real treatment because the results were so
positive.  I forget the details anymore though.

-- 
Marcus Brubaker <marcus.brubaker-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

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