Placebo, antibody, and the destiny of failure

by Jon Rappoport

October 4, 2018

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There is a fallacy buried in diagnostic tests that employ antibodies as the standard of measure.

The presence of antibodies specific to a particular germ doesn’t automatically signify illness, and yet that is the interpretation being made these days.

This would be an interesting challenge:

A lab is given blood samples from a number of patients. Each sample, it is found, indicates antibodies to germ X. The lab must state whether these people are displaying symptoms of illness X.

By the rules, the answer would be yes in every case. Yet, the answer would be wrong in a majority of cases—perhaps in all cases.

Why? Because naturally produced antibodies normally mean the person’s immune system has warded off the germ.

At this point, the lab might say, “Well, yes, but chances are these people will get sick. It just hasn’t happened yet. Or they have the disease without symptoms.”

These are not scientific statements. One would have to follow the test cases for a while to see whether they get sick. I would bet against it. In any event, a diagnosis of illness based on a positive antibody test is not about the future. It’s about the present. Public health agencies routinely count case numbers on the basis of antibody tests. And the idea of a disease without symptoms is just a feint. It’s a contradiction in terms.

On to placebo. In any serious controlled trial of a medical drug, there are two groups. One group gets the drug; the other gets a sugar pill. The reason for this practice has been obscured in modern times. Actually, it is done because a certain percentage of people (around 20%) will get better no matter what you give them. Therefore, the drug has to perform significantly better than the placebo.

However, we need to return to the medical origin of the placebo. This is it: a country doctor, faced with a patient who was a hypochondriac, would hand him a sugar pill. The patient would take it and then feel better.

But…you see, the patient believed he was getting effective medicine. That’s what caused him to recover.

In a controlled trial, this is not the case. The patient knows, beforehand, that he will get EITHER the medicine or a placebo. This setting doesn’t provoke the same belief. It’s different. It’s weaker.

Therefore, one can expect that the “cure rate” in the placebo group will be lower than the normal 20%. And, as a result, the actual drug will only need to meet a lower standard of success, relative to the results obtained by the placebo.

Bottom line? A medical drug can test out with fewer positive outcomes to be deemed effective. Unless someone decides that the placebo group performed in an unexpected manner—but who cares about that when the goal is to establish that the drug is a winner?


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Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

11 comments on “Placebo, antibody, and the destiny of failure

  1. Skenny says:

    Regarding placebo, patient gets better
    due to body healing itself. Only the body
    Can heal. It’s not a brain thing, it’s just
    How it works… plus, with less load on the
    System (no drugs/extra toxins), body can
    Get better even more efficiently.

  2. robertwachsmuth says:

    American murder Association
    99.9% modern-day cannibalism.
    Millions murdered buy abortion.
    Millions murdered by legal prescription drug overdose.
    No investigations.
    No prosecution’s..
    24/7 disease mongering commercials by the pharmaceutical billionaires.

  3. robertwachsmuth says:

    American murder Association.
    Please contact the Census Data Bureau to see how many Americans have actually been eliminated from the American landscape.
    Killing off my family and friends.
    This has been going on for a long time.
    The FDA knows the hepatitis B vaccine for infants is contaminated and they still allow pediatricians to injected into newborn infants.

  4. robertwachsmuth says:

    American murder Association.
    More Healthcare.
    More drug addicts.

  5. henry says:

    If the study is double-blind — Neither the tester or the testee knows if the pharmaceutical is a placebo — then the effectiveness should be measured. Placebo effect could be calculated by crunching the numbers.

    Are drug studies double-blind today? In college, I worked on a study and each patient’s data was in either a brown binder or a green binder indicating the real drug or the placebo was being tested.

  6. Placebo: interesting word. It’s a paranormal event Jon. One is tricked really, into actually using their mind the way it should be used, but once they realize that there is no medicine in the pill. They are upset, that they have been tricked and so fall back to that frozen symbol of, the power of allopathic medicine in their mind. They feel the doctor is taking care of them. When that feeling should be applied to themselves — “i am taking good care of myself”

    I looked up the defining factors of the word and got an interesting answer — a usually pharmacologically inert preparation prescribed more for the MENTAL RELIEF of the patient than its actual effect on a disorder.

    So, if I have a headache, and I take a placebo, and my headache goes away, it is really still there and the effect is simply MENTAL RELIEF. Wow these guys who write dictionary definitions are so smart (sic).

    I personally have a belief that I can cure myself of anything, and really that is all cure is about — belief. The only true cure, is the one you perform on yourself. If you give up that personal power to a doctor…insert logic here.

    The statistics are astounding, in the case of cancer — chemotherapy vs placebo. Chemotherapy treatment has a survival rate of about 44% in brest cancer. In other cancers it is much lower, as low as 1%, but at best no greater than 3-4%. Placebo on the other hand is about 30-40% of any treated group. In one study by Henry Beecher Md, the father of the placebo reactors and non reactors. Out of 199 people who were given a placebo for a headache, 79 got relief from the headache (Jellinek 1946).

    But, new and recent research and findings are as high as 75%.

    Strange how people have to be tricked into believing, and then when they find out, they fall back to being brain-dead.

    Intersesting fact is the side affects of placebo. They are the  lighter side affects as if the patient received a drug: dry mouth, nausea, sensation of heaviness, difficulty concentrating, drowsiness, warm glow, relaxation, fatique, falling asleep.

    Healing is a synergistic affect…

    Add into all this; change of lifestyle; eliminate toxins; eat living food, instead of junk food, drink clean water and breath good air and exercise. Exercise that great imagination and creativity, and believe in the power of the individual.

  7. Not So Free says:

    Interesting that many “placebos” are anything but. In one case they used olive oil extract as the placebo. Little difference found. DUH!

  8. Actually, people also get better if they know they are taking a placebo. So that’s not the problem. The problem is that most people in such a trial who take the drug know they take the drug and therefore the blind part is gone. Drugs have side effects and most people experience side effects. And participants in trials usually know what the side effects can be. So as soon as they notice these effects they know they are taking the drug.
    The randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial is largely a hoax.

    The infection test has also another huge flaw. It’s known that they are not very useful, so doctors are asked to only send in a test if it’s highly likely that the patient has the disease. Which means that also without the test the diagnosis could be made. But doctors and patients are so attached to their tests that they happily overlook this huge red flag.

  9. Jon

    Scientists would do well to study the placebo effect with reverence.

    Here’s a snippet from my soon-to-be-published article “Coming Clean on Cancer”:

    “…Contrary to popular belief, from the atomic perspective, everyone subject to specific pollution is cancerous. Cell damage and responding tumours are not necessarily apparent “to the eye”, but they may be. Significant effects will prompt an individual to consider seeking diagnosis and medics routinely come involved at the “too late” stages. Even so there are natural cosmetic regeneration solutions. These do not isolate and remove causes, but they can perennially stem symptoms. The most prolific solution I am aware of is cannabis oil. Providing sufficient time is given to administration, the oil appears to permanently delay most (if not all) cancers. In this case an extended healing term generally runs in excess of fifteen months. Thus cannabis will have much less causal benefit to those late stagers that are indefinitely terminally ill beyond the placebo effect. Belief in the cure underscores the importance of the libido and energetic harmony by the way.

    Given the overwhelming significance of environment and attitude towards life, hints that the underlying cause of all illness is mind are already in plain sight. What can be achieved from hypnosis should baffle conventional sciences. However, from the microscopic perspectives, there are distinct differences that distinguish different types of body invaders. One of the great medical establishment deceits is to foster the myth that some illnesses might be the result of airborne delivered complaints. I can confirm possibly all micro-particles causing illness are received by air. Why the medical establishment is specifically deceitful here, I can explain…”

    Here’s a snippet outlining why science etiquette will perennially fail:

    “….So down to the nitty-gritty, there are six fundamental causes of Illnesses (categorised by the medical establishment). Living “invaders” are separated out as fungi and bacteria. Non-metabolic extraneous matter causes viruses and cancer, though I potentially disagree with this analysis in some cases. The virus rabies and cognitive Parkinson’s disease greatly intrigue me, for instance. Other causes, though not always specifically termed “illnesses”, are effects of severe wounds to the body and symptoms relaying to the breakdown of mind. Currently in the way medicine works, it is intolerably difficult to separate symptoms from causes. Therefore, without any discernible patterns indicating malignance, physicians are at a loss to origins of aggregated concerns (or, indeed, whether there is a concern at all). Intuitive talents have been known to feel problems long before they occur, yet the greatest medical minds are rendered powerless without review of visible cosmetic effects. They cannot see viruses before symptoms appear. Myth persuades cancers can “arbitrarily” spring up anywhere, so obviously without sound pre-emptive strategies every perspective patient many as well be classed as terminal.

    Tying in with “you are what you eat”, the gut keys in with the mind (hence native Redskins recognised parallel inter-connected pulmonary and nervous systems). It delivers all the body’s nutrients via the bloodstream. Lack of appetite is probably one of the best barometers for illness in general. This is not to say it is possible to cure disease simply by synthesising hunger. No, but progress may be delayed or allayed with appetite because after food is processed, the body has capacity to generate. Illness promotes the opposite effect. Degeneration of life summarises death. Spontaneous growth is the gateway to immortality. Sensationally promoted as adjunct to the battle against cancer, it is well known that smoking the conflicting narcotic cannabis will likely induce sufficient improvement of appetite that makes food intake possible. However there is another problem. Delaying or halting the wasting of muscle tissue requires multiple means…”

    Best
    OT

  10. From Quebec says:

    Well, I have been blessed. I do not take pills, I am afraid to choke swallowing a pill… LOL

    But I do take vitamins, but only if they are in a liquid form.

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