Dear Colleagues,
We have received the following query. If you can help Muhammed would
you be kind enough to respond to him directly.
Many thanks,
Olive
Olive Goddard
Centre and Editorial Manager
Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine
Room 4
Oxford University Department of Psychiatry
Warneford Hospital, Headington
Oxford, OX3 7JX
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>>> Muhammad Ali Dhansay <[log in to unmask]> 06/09/2004 09:45:17
>>>
I'm with the SA MRC in Cape Town (Paediatrician) and a colleague of Dr
Carl Lombard (Unit Director Biostatistics).
I'd appreciate your view on the following question related to placebos
in RCTs in a community setting.
I am reviewing a paper by my own group (Nutritional Intervention
Research Unit, MRC) that describes an RCT among infants with one group
receiving a micronutrient fortified cereal and the other a placebo,
which is the same cereal except for the added micronutrients. The
authors describe their study as a 'placebo-controlled RCT'. In my
view,
this is not a placebo in the true sense of the word, i.e. inert, tastes
the same, looks the same, as the intervention cereal, except for the
added micronutrients.
How would you describe the 'placebo' cereal?
With kind regards
Ali Dhansay
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