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Larry Nassar and the Nocebo Effect

Posted by Baldur on Wednesday, November 14 2018 at 05:38:48AM

I came across this article about Larry Nassar, the doctor for USA Gymnastics who was convicted of molesting hundreds of girls including multiple Olympic champions.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/how-did-larry-nassar-deceive-so-many-for-so-long.html

I'm not going to defend him. If nothing else he was deceptive about what he was doing, not always allowing the girls agency in what happened to them. I'll let the article speak for itself.

But there's a curious subtext here: though there were many girls who made complaints to various regulatory bodies, and some even made complaints to the police, most did not complain. What's more, many girls still went to him for treatment and even preferred him to other doctors, despite obviously knowing what his treatments often consisted of. Moreover, none of the authorities took the complaints seriously until they came across separate evidence that Nassar had child pornography, and therefore presumably a sexual interest in girls. The authorities also knew what his treatments consisted of, but Nassar had a medical basis for why these treatments could work (though he extended the usefulness of this treatment beyond credibility) and as long as there was a plausible medical reason for his actions multiple levels of authorities backed him up. Only a minority presumed harm in the actions themselves.

In fact, many of the girls credited his treatments, later characterized as molestation, as being effective in healing their injuries. Most everyone agreed that he was an excellent doctor.

Only after the allegations of child pornography surfaced did the majority turn against him, and girls who formerly preferred him to other doctors retroactively felt violated and harmed by his actions.

"There is nothing either bad or good, but thinking makes it so." - Hamlet

My point here is simply this: How much of Larry Nassar's effectiveness as a doctor was due to the placebo effect, and the rituals by which his patients felt that they were being treated by a caring doctor regardless of what the actual rituals were?

And how much of the harm that has come to Larry Nassar's patients is primarily the result of those who persuaded these girls that they were not treated but molested? The opposite of a placebo: the nocebo effect.




Baldur






• ( https link ) article about Larry Nassar
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