The BSA site http://www.stammering.org/pagoclone.html
tells us, ‘Indevus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced results from a phase II trial of pagoclone in 132 adults with persistent developmental stuttering, with 44 receiving the active compound at low doses, 44 at high doses, and 44 receiving a placebo. Objective fluency improved (videotaped and scored by independent raters blinded) and so did subjective assessment scores (made by the participants in the trial). They were measured twice before the start of the trial, after 4 weeks and again after 8 weeks of treatment. 55% of the pagoclone treated patients had improved at week 8 compared to 36% of placebo treated patients’.
Now, if this is accurate: of 100 PWS who take pagoclone 55 will improve overall but 36 would have improved anyway ( placebo response ) leaving 19 who will benefit from pagoclone. This means that it is half as good as a placebo 19/36.
Bear in mind the placebo doesn’t have side effects.
Am I missing something? Or how do people get lauded for bad science, never mind arithmetic?
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About Me
- PM
- I am a middle aged medic who is interested in Modelling Behaviour. I have 12 yrs experience and attend trainings regularly with John McWhirter at Sensory Systems Training in Glasgow, Scotland. I am interested in stammering and I am convinced that in the majority of cases it is a behaviour and not an affliction. Rather than lurk on other sites I decided to share my thinking on a blog.
2 comments:
Interesting... yet the placebo effect only works with pagaclone. So these research must continue and one day the drug will work. For now, the idea of the drug will help a few and the drug itself will help a few.
Thanks Dev
But no.
The point about placebo is that it is sugar pill or vit C or the like. if no pharmacological effect known, purely psychological. Also the placebo should have no detrimental side effects, unlike pagoclone.
So you have to take away the placebo effect to find the benefit.
In humans, this is a big problem for the pharmaceutical industry with anything other than
antibiotics.
Try wikipedia for the placebo response to get an outline.
Drugs that work on mood, including alcohol, are very prone to placebo influence and this has to be discounted from the drug under test.
Pagoclone is a very dodgy substance to give to PWS and, while I am not casting aspersions on the motives of the researchers, I am not sure about their science.
Peter
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