Christmas is the time to contemplate miracles and medicine has come up with a big one. After major accidents, we’re all used to hearing calls from blood donors on the radio, especially those with rare blood types. But this wouldn’t be such a problem if we could get blood from a person’s skin. It sounds like a zombie movie, but it’s true: Scientists have now discovered how to do this.
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How can drugs which were prescribed to millions of people turn out to be worthless? A lot of it has to do with the fact that drug companies do their own testing and are not always candid about the results.
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New studies suggest that medicine that is regularly being taken by millions of people may be merely a placebo. The drug companies themselves now admit that antidepressants such as Prozac probably don’t work.
BBC News reports that a new study shows that these medicines only help “a small group of the most severely depressed,” and quotes researcher Irving Kirsch as saying, “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very great. This means that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments. Given these results, there seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit.”
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Do Home Remedies Work?
Do ancient cures work? Now that it’s flu season, this is a question that a lot of people want answered.
Some simple home remedies do work. For instance, chicken soup can ease cold symptoms, and duct tape can remove warts.
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