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CHAPTER 14
Medications: Regulated and Unregulated
Guilty until Proven Innocent
In a court of law, you are innocent until proven guilty. In science, you are guilty until proven
innocent. The FDA assumes that medications don't work (“guilty”) and that it's up to the
pharmaceutical company, or whoever else is bringing the claim, to prove that the medication is more
effective than placebo in a minimum of two separate double-blind (neither the patient nor doctor
knows if active medication or placebo is given) clinical studies involving hundreds to even thousands
of patients.
A Small Catch: The Practice Effect
As discussed in the Preface, in evaluating treatments for memory loss, a unique factor absolutely
mandates a placebo-controlled trial. This is called the practice effect.
When you first try to complete neuropsychological tests, which include the tests of memory
described in chapter 1, some parts seem difficult. The next time you do the same tests, you are likely
to perform
