werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (02/26/85)
> (allegra|ihnp4)!cbdkc1!tjs (Tom Stanions) asks: > Here is my question, What is medical proof? Ah, a tricky question. Ideally, it means that in doubly blind studies (where neither Doctor nor Patient know what the patient is receiving) that a drug to be tested provides better results than: 1. Pure chance 2. the indistinguishable placebo In many cases, however, that cannot be done (ethics being what they are, it is immoral to withhold treatment) so the studies are done comparing one treatment to another treatment, to conclude that Drug X works better than Drug Y or for the same drug, dosage A works better than dosage B. But remember, the results have to be better than chance. Two examples: Mr. Stannions said he had the flu, took Vitamin C and was cured in three days. Does this signify proof? The answer is "No!" because: 1. No virology was done to determine whether he did in fact have influenza. 2. No parallel control was done to see if he had had an identical Virus, not taken Vitamin C, and had it for two weeks. (This can't be done with one person - a person can't get the same virus twice normally, but has to be done in a group) The Harvard Research Center in England (no known relationship to the University in Cambridge MA that I know of) has been giving people colds for 30 years and have never found that Vitamin C did any good for them, so to me that signifies negative proof. (or if not *proof*, then a very strong suggestion.) As for Laetrile, I don't even want to talk about it, except to repeat once again - Laetrile IS NOT A B VITAMIN, period! -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner What do you expect? Watermelons are out of season!