It seems there might be a placebo effect at work when dogs get medicines.
Or at least that's the conclusion of a very small sample study of dogs with epilepsy, 79% of which "demonstrated a decrease in seizure frequency" when they got noting more than a sugar pill.
Count me skeptical. That said, the fact that drugs are still be tested against placebos at all is a national disgrace.
If a drug company reports its drugs being positively seat-raced against a placebo, then the label for said drug should read, in capital letters with a black box warning:
"Better than nothing, provided you discount the outrageous cost you are paying for this nonsense, the liver and nerve damage we have not reported, and the greasy stools that result when you take this product.".
2 comments:
Clearly the dogs did not know what was in the pills (drugs vs. placebo). I wonder if the owners knew and if not, then perhaps it's not a placebo effect but a change in the owner's attitude impacting the dogs.
If these are lab dogs (it does not say) it might simply be that attention (any kind) reduces stress, which reduces epilepsy.
The connections between stress and epilepic seizures are well-known >> http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/provoke_stress
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