Death by Medicine – its Time to Take Placebo Seriously
Placebos: The Exception to the Rule….doesn’t that make the “Rule” wrong?
I have recently finished an excellent book by Bruce Lipton, PhD, “The Biology of Belief” and am so excited by what I consider a growing body of knowledge developing into what some term ‘New science’. Lipton reinforces what several vocal scientists are beginning to make public, the underlying energy of an organism is much more critical than we have previously believed. We are not mechanical physical beings but we are driven by energy fields including thought, beliefs and emotions. These energies have direct impact on our physical bodies and we ignore them at our peril.
For these New scientists they are not necessarily believers of energy healing but what they notice are too many exceptions to the “Rules”. In pure physics, any exception to the rule means the rule is not right, there is no such thing as an anomaly in physics – the theory either works 100% of the time, or it is wrong. In medicine, however, there are massive anomalies that are brushed under the carpet. They have names for it “spontaneous remission” and “Placebo effect”. A spontaneous remission is someone who totally recovers for no apparent reason – amazing and miraculous – you would think the medical profession would jump all over these people, study them as the “rule” breaker and try to figure out why. But these exceptions are an embarrassment, a reminder that maybe we have the capability of getting better all by ourselves!
The Placebo Effect is my favourite ‘exception’. A placebo is when patients get better by taking a false pill but believing they are on a real drug. In 1955, Henry K. Beecher, M.D., reported on the placebo effect and set in motion the double-blind clinical testing now in place. Beecher found that about 35% of the time, patients who took a pill containing no active ingredients experienced an improvement in their condition. Since his finding there has been much controversy over the existence of the placebo – there are powerful medical and pharmacological consequences (and dollars) at stake. However, an excellent article in Wired Magazine outlines some of the difficulties Pharmaceutical companies are having. It seems our Placebo response is actually getting stronger! In terms of the huge anti-depressent market, it would seem they are no more effective than placebos, and medication is actually getting less effective over time.
The article suggests that the reason this is happening is that we have been conditioned by advertising (who says slogans don’t work?!), in other words we are so used to seeing medical ads on TV we automatically associate pill-popping with improvements and so our body responds accordingly. There may be some truth to this as any hypnotherapist will attest but I would add to this hypothesis the growing trend towards positive thinking, law of attraction and the power of our minds. As we are slowly waking up to the power of our thoughts, so we are taking more control over how our minds are thinking, and therefore how our bodies are responding.
Considering the side effects caused by pharmaceuticals (in 2003 a study concluded that more than 300,000 deaths per annum were caused by adverse reactions to prescription drugs in the USA, Null & Dean), it is high time we start to examine the Placebo effect more consciously, not as a nuisance to be overcome by the pharmaceutical industry.
If we open our minds to the information starting to filter through the scientific community and actually play with the Placebo. What will increase our Placebo mind? What enhances its effects? Obviously our mind is capable of healing the body or the Placebo effect would be an impossibility – what can we do to help it?
Part of the reason I am so passionate about Reiki, Law of Attraction, and the Work of Byron Katie is that all these tools provide avenues for educating and training our mind to the possibility of self-healing. In effect we are deliberately using the Placebo effect and multiplying it! There is obviously something in it, 35% and growing is a heck of an ‘anomaly’, and I for one, like the odds!