The Power Of Nothing (TOW #2)

Michael Specter is a staff columnist for the New Yorker whose research focuses primarily in the fields of science and technology. He has written for many other publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is also the author of Denialism, a book about irrational thinking in science. He cites many notable names such as Ted Kaptchuk, one of the foremost experts on the placebo effect and a Harvard professor as well as many other studies.

The Power Of Nothing is an essay about the power of the placebo effect. The essay looks at the placebo from many different lights and takes into consideration the views of many important people as well as the outcomes of many critical experiments. Specter introduces Ted Kaptchuk, who remains a key focus throughout his essay. Kaptchuk is one of very few Harvard medical professors without an MD or PHD. He is an acupuncturist. He introduces the essay with an anecdote for Kaptchuk about a woman who came to be treated with acupuncture and found it was the miracle cure to the pain she had in her ovaries and was going to undergo intense surgery for. Kaptchuk then shares with Specter that there was no way his acupuncture had physically done something to relieve the pain and introduces the essays topic. The Placebo.

Specter continues to describe both the history of the Placebo as well as its many applications and definitions. He explains that placebos originated to disprove a french mystic who won the interest of Marie Antoinette, and that they are crucial to medicine, they have been historically used as a sort of last ditch resort. He also describes their application in modern days as a testing for different medications. It is as this point where he begins to site many studies and their often conflicting findings in the effectiveness of placebos in application as a drug. Many argue that placebos could be used to actually treat patients while others argue that placebos are infact powerless and rather an accumulation of other significant factors. In the end, however specter presents an argument that guides the reader to a more pro-placebo mindset.

Specter then reveals his true purpose. A call to action for a change in the current medical system. He shows a culminating among many researches that the current medical process can be improved and ends his essay citing his own experience, in which he visited his own doctor and his reassurance was enough to make him feel better, in his opinion, an indisputable placebo effect,