Word: effected
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...That the effect of bogus treatments is real has long been known, but the mechanism behind them is still largely a scientific mystery. The standard explanation is that we are just fooling ourselves. In Latin, placebo means "I shall please," which suggests that the placebo effect is just a fleeting mind trick - that the mere suggestion of pharmacologically induced pain relief humors the body into temporary recovery. In trials, every drug response is in fact assumed to be at least partially due to the placebo effect. But the confounding thing about the benefits of the placebo is that the effect...
Consider the negative placebo response, called the nocebo effect. (The term nocebo is also from Latin, this time from the infinitive nocere, "to do harm.") A nocebo response occurs when the suggestion of a negative effect of an intervention leads to an actual negative outcome. When doctors tell patients that a medical procedure will be extremely painful, for example, they tend to experience significantly more pain than patients who weren't similarly warned. And in double-blind clinical trials of antidepressants, even those participants receiving a sugar pill report side effects like gastrointestinal discomfort if investigators have warned them...
...Pain study found that date of publication had no effect on the side effects reported: the placebo and nocebo responses were just as robust before 1997 as after. That leaves scientists still looking for an answer. The Wired story suggested that the act of merely doing something good for yourself may stimulate the body's "endogenous health-care system," perhaps by inhibiting stress hormones. But that wouldn't explain why the same act might lead to phantom nocebo aches and pains...
...resulting tally, then, would include a much smaller pool of participants, which automatically lessens the significance of whatever effect, if any, the vaccine appeared to have, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "When you lose statistical power, something that would have been significant in the [original, larger] population, could now fall below significance merely by the lower numbers. That's what happened with this trial," Fauci says...
Will the march have a lasting effect? The previous gay march on Washington, in 2000, ended in fiasco when money was stolen from march organizers and little follow-up occurred after the attendees left Washington. The organizers this year were determined to avoid those problems. The march was staged for just over $200,000 - about a quarter of the cost of the 2000 event - and Jones and other principals repeatedly gave out a number that they wanted marchers to text, which would automatically sign them up on a mailing list the organizers hope will be useful in all congressional districts...