March 11, 2008
Hurray for placebo!
Here is my little celebration of the placebo effect on CNE: Knowing the price tag makes you healthier.
Maybe the rise in health care costs is making us healthier?
My biggest concern about placebo is that cognition enhancement is likely very vulnerable to it. While this makes us get nice effects from weak enhancers, it also hampers the development of really powerful enhancers. Especially if it is a customer-driven market where economic success is more strongly driven by customer linking than actual efficacy.
Maybe creating new abilities is the way to truly radical enhancements. A new ability cannot be faked, although its benefits may be overstated.
We need a strong tie between consumer information and evidence based medicine - which makes sense in normal medicine too. Cost effectiveness is much more iffy, especially for subjective benefits.
Posted by Anders3 at March 11, 2008 11:50 AM