The placebo effect is a real and therapeutic psychological phenomenon that, with more research, could be exploited more systematically in medical practice, said Australian researchers. ‘There is not one placebo effect, but many,’ wrote Damien Finniss, MSc, of the University of Sydney in Australia, and colleagues in the Feb. 20 issue of The Lancet, arguing that recent research shows that placebo effects can exist even in the absence of an actual placebo. Much remains to be learned about the mechanisms underlying placebo effects as well as the ethics of providing placebo-based treatments, but it seems likely that eventually these effects can be harnessed to improve patient care, they concluded. Finniss and colleagues reviewed the literature on the placebo effect, which suggests that it is far more complicated than many people think. It is more than just taking a pill that patients think is, or could be, an active drug. The act of receiving a pill brings a whole ‘psychosocial context’ into play, according to Finniss and colleagues: it includes not only the patient’s desires and expectations but also those of the clinician; their past experiences; and their interaction with each other and with their physical and […]
Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas has found a new explanation for why there are disabled children in the world — apparently they are God’s punishment to women for abortion. On Thursday at a press conference to urge the state to end all funding to Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, the Staunton News Leader quotes Marshall: ‘The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,’ said Marshall, a Republican. ‘In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.’ So according to Marshall’s logic does that mean that Sarah Palin has had an abortion? That Trig is her punishment from God? That society should look at all women who have disabled children as suspect of some evil? The Virginia Christian Alliance sponsored the press conference to present a petition urging the state to end all funding to Planned Parenthood of Virginia, which provides low-cost health services […]
Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d’état in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place. The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy. As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment. They can be the self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party, acting as if they are part of the debate and feel vindicated by their cries of protest. Much of the outrage expressed about the court’s ruling is the outrage of those who prefer this choreographed charade. As long as the charade is played, they do not have to consider how to combat what the political philosopher Sheldon […]
MIAMI – In her 88 years, Florence Siegel has learned how to relax: A glass of red wine. A crisp copy of The New York Times, if she can wrest it from her husband. Some classical music, preferably Bach. And every night like clockwork, she lifts a pipe to her lips and smokes marijuana. Long a fixture among young people, use of the country’s most popular illicit drug is now growing among the AARP set, as the massive generation of baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s grows older. The number of people aged 50 and older reporting marijuana use in the prior year went up from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent from 2002 to 2008, according to surveys from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The rise was most dramatic among 55- to 59-year-olds, whose reported marijuana use more than tripled from 1.6 percent in 2002 to 5.1 percent. Observers expect further increases as 78 million boomers born between 1945 and 1964 age. For many boomers, the drug never held the stigma it did for previous generations, and they tried it decades ago. Some have used it ever […]
You arrive for work and someone informs you that you have until five o’clock to clean out your office. You have been laid off. At first, your family is brave and supportive, and although you’re in shock, you convince yourself that you were ready for something new. Then you start waking up at 3 A.M., apparently in order to stare at the ceiling. You can’t stop picturing the face of the employee who was deputized to give you the bad news. He does not look like George Clooney. You have fantasies of terrible things happening to him, to your boss, to George Clooney. You find-a novel recognition-not only that you have no sex drive but that you don’t care. You react irritably when friends advise you to let go and move on. After a week, you have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. After two weeks, you have a hard time getting out of the house. You go see a doctor. The doctor hears your story and prescribes an antidepressant. Do you take it? However you go about making this decision, do not read the psychiatric literature. Everything in it, from the science (do the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
