The Placebo Effect Book Report

Bad Science – Book Report
Elam Dula
212964763
20/11/14

1. THE PLACEBO EFFECT

The first break through that caught my attention was the most common one, the application of “ The Placebo Effect” on our society. A placebo is a fake treatment, inactive substance that can sometimes improve a patient’s condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will. As I read Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science, I was surprised to learn a couple of new things. TThe first one was the fact that alerting a patient about the prescription of the placebo does not negate it’s effects. In his book Ben references to a study conducted at John Hopkins in 1965 in which patients were told they were going to receive a sugar pill as a treatment for their
Once again he targets nutritionists and their ability to speak beyond the evidence to make a market for them selves. Goldacre explains four different concepts but the one that stuck out to me the most, is the concept of “ Observation or Intervention”. By using Angela Dowden, he explains that the occurrence of two things at the same time is weak circumstantial evidence for causation. In one of Angela’s columns in The Mirror she states that by eating olive oil with a combination of fruits and vegetable, you will most likely have less wrinkles (Goldacre, 90). Although she is correct about the effect olive oil has on our skin, she missed out certain differences in patients such sun exposure, stress level and diet. This concept doesn’t only apply to nutritionists. I myself make the same mistake of grouping two incidents together and making it a ritual. For example a study habit I share with my friends is that having a certain playlist for an each subject helps you remember the material better. Now although this may work for me there are certain factors I haven’t taken into consideration. This may include if the person focuses while they listen to music or their interests in a certain
Mostly used in British schools, the brain gym activities have been incorporated into many educational, sports and senior programs throughout the word. A lesson learned in this chapter was that Brain Gym involves flattering an explanation with terminology to convince people it is correct. As Goldacre explains “ scientific knowledge and sensible dietary are common sense” (Goldacre, 50,). Staying healthy is something that is simple and common sense. Eating the right portions, meals and daily exercise is usually all it takes. But many nutritionists as we know use more scientific methods to turn vegetables into pills. Another thing I learned was that this also forms a connection with the placebo effect. My own personal experience with this was through diet pills with Garcia Extract. When this first came out a lot of celebrities had success with it even Dr.Oz confirmed it works! And just like every other diet pill ,different nutritionists marketed their own versions of it with impressive scientific explanations. If you are not knowledgeable about a particular product, you are more likely to spend thousands of dollars of diets and exercise because of impressive