Is Placebo Acupuncture What It Is Intended to Be?

Is Placebo Acupuncture What It Is Intended to Be?

Randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials are recommended for evaluation of a treatment's efficacy with the goal of separating the specific effects (verum) from the non-specific ones (placebo). In order to be able to carry out placebo-controlled acupuncture trials, minimal/sham acupuncture procedures and a sham acupuncture needle has been used with the intention of being inert. However, cl...

health communication what it is and what is not

P-value: What is and what is not

The misinterpretation and misuse of p-value have been increasing for decades. In March 2016, the American Statistical Association released a statement to warn about the use and interpretation of p-value. In this study, we provided a definition and discussion of p-value and emphasized the importance of its accurate interpretation.    

Gene therapy : what it is , what it is not and what it will be

Gene therapy is the therapeutic procedure based on the introduction of healthy genes using recombinant DNA techniques. the first successful clinical trial of this technique was published in 1990. Despite the occurrence of adverse effects in certain clinical trials, some of them serious, both laboratories and companies are continuously developing novel materials and establishing both safer and m...

Acupuncture is theatrical placebo.

P ain is a big problem. If you read about pain management centers, you might think it had been solved. It has not. And when no effective treatment exists for a medical problem, it leads to a tendency to clutch at straws. Research has shown that acupuncture is little more than such a straw. Although it is commonly claimed that acupuncture has been around for thousands of years, it has not always...