By Siegfried Othmer, PhD In the August edition of Scientific American, professional skeptic Michael Schermer took on facilitated communication (FC) for autistic children, a tactic that had been thoroughly discredited in a Frontline piece on PBS back in 1993 entitled “Prisoners of Silence.” Sue Othmer and I had watched that episode at the time, and […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD Recently a study showed that some people react badly to statins. Statins have been in use for twenty years, and if some people respond badly to them, then that has also been a fact for about the same number of years. So why was a study needed? And if a study […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD It is probably worth observing that sometime over the past several years the milestone was undoubtedly passed in which the one millionth person benefited from one or another of our neurofeedback protocols, implemented on one or another of our three generations of neurofeedback systems: NeuroCybernetics, EEGer, and Cygnet. It’s difficult to […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD If the placebo is such a big deal, why is it not being diligently studied? Why is the ‘cause’ of the placebo ‘effect’ not being looked for? If this is such a huge factor that it governs all drug studies, surely it deserves some attention in its own right.
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD Years ago an event occurred in Los Angeles that every resident at the time surely remembers. An elderly man plowed through an open-air market in Santa Monica for which a street had been dedicated. There had been no evasive maneuvers, and the man may even have accelerated the vehicle during the […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD The death of Patty Duke places the challenge of Bipolar Disorder front and center. In her case, it was not diagnosed for many years, which is not atypical. Her turbulent life even after it was diagnosed testifies to the fact that the condition was not under good control.