Drug induced confusion

Simon Singh does not like homeopathic medicine. In particular he is offended by the notion that highly diluted solutions, containing not one molecule of active ingredient, still nevertheless remember what they once were & so can bring about a cure. He has offered a prize for anyone who can prove this scientifically

Now this sounds like fair old nonsense to me too.

But what are we to make of the news of Australian research which shows that athletes who only believed they were taking a banned substance outperformed everyone else in their group? This was an 8-week placebo-controlled trial of growth hormones (I wonder how they got ethical approval for that – declaring a practice illegal or harmful usually stymies further research into its effects)

And to take us even further into this Looking Glass world, legal experts reportedly disagree on whether athletes who only thought that they were taking drugs could fall foul of anti-doping rules

I think I need to go & lie down for a bit. Take an imaginary aspirin. My head hurts

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