<story><title>Surgery, the Ultimate Placebo</title><url>https://www.skepdoc.info/ian-harris-on-surgery-the-ultimate-placebo/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>owenversteeg</author><text>Does anyone have any examples of surgeries that are done today in modern medicine that are basically placebo? I&amp;#x27;m surprised the article didn&amp;#x27;t give a single example.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rsync</author><text>&amp;quot;Does anyone have any examples of surgeries that are done today in modern medicine that are basically placebo?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Spinal fusions for injuries not sustained in car accidents or horse throws or ... other &lt;i&gt;literally back-breaking&lt;/i&gt; trauma.&lt;p&gt;People with plain old uninteresting everyone-gets-it back pain get spinal fusions - a major, invasive surgery.  There is a complicated nexus of obesity, refusal to do PT exercises, and huge economic incentives for surgeons that lead to these procedures.&lt;p&gt;This critical review even mentions a Cochrane review[1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;... and often does not even result in the spine being fused. That last one is not a big deal, because the results of the surgery are not well correlated with whether or not the spine fuses.&amp;quot;[2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cochranelibrary.com&amp;#x2F;cdsr&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;10.1002&amp;#x2F;14651858.CD001352.pub3&amp;#x2F;abstract&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cochranelibrary.com&amp;#x2F;cdsr&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;10.1002&amp;#x2F;14651858.CD...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;doctorskeptic.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;is-lumbar-spine-fusion-just-placebo.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;doctorskeptic.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;is-lumbar-spine-fu...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Surgery, the Ultimate Placebo</title><url>https://www.skepdoc.info/ian-harris-on-surgery-the-ultimate-placebo/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>owenversteeg</author><text>Does anyone have any examples of surgeries that are done today in modern medicine that are basically placebo? I&amp;#x27;m surprised the article didn&amp;#x27;t give a single example.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jpmattia</author><text>The first thing that occurred to me when I read the title: Tonsillectomies used to be very common when I was growing up, and eventually that stopped.  See eg:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5883156&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5883156&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>