{"id":6877,"date":"2026-04-27T14:52:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/?p=6877"},"modified":"2026-04-27T14:52:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:52:32","slug":"methods-of-deception-in-pseudomedicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/methods-of-deception-in-pseudomedicine\/","title":{"rendered":"Methods of Deception in Pseudomedicine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pseudoscientific<\/a> treatment methods rely on a variety of tricks to demonstrate their supposed effectiveness. Since their actual therapeutic effect does not exceed placebo<\/a>, they desperately need some kind of \u201cevidence\u201d they can present to patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the simplest techniques can be conditionally called \u201ctreating a suddenly discovered disease.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During an examination, the practitioner \u201cdetects\u201d a certain pathology or syndrome that allegedly already threatens the patient\u2019s health and will soon lead to serious consequences. Real symptoms are either ignored or partially reinterpreted as early manifestations of this newly discovered, dangerous condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next comes a set of \u201ctherapeutic procedures\u201d of varying duration that produce a \u201cpositive\u201d result, after which the practitioner declares that the dangerous syndrome has been eliminated: \u201d a little later \u2014 and it would have been too late\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The invented syndrome is usually given a name that sounds similar to real medical conditions but does not correspond to any actual diagnosis. This prevents the patient, should doubts arise, from easily seeking an outside opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, nothing is actually detected, and the patient has no such disease or syndrome. It is simply fabricated. The treatment serves only to create the appearance of work and justify charging money. Sometimes real symptoms are addressed along the way, which may improve well\u2011being \u2014 but this is typically a temporary effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many variations of this technique. It is not even necessary to invent a new disease \u2014 existing symptoms can simply be freely reinterpreted. The essence remains the same: replacing the patient\u2019s real condition with a fictional diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the invented syndrome does not have to be \u201cdangerous.\u201d It only needs to sound important enough to draw the patient into treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach is especially common in the field of musculoskeletal disorders. Many such conditions have a remitting course, meaning improvement will eventually occur on its own. All that\u2019s needed is to time the treatment so that remission coincides with the end of the procedure cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A particular variation of this technique for example, is the widely used chiropractic adjustment<\/strong> that is popular in some countries. The only difference is that patients are pre\u2011conditioned to believe they need periodic \u201cmaintenance,\u201d similar to scheduled car servicing. Otherwise, it\u2019s the same pattern: pseudoscientific foundations, manipulations that look impressive but do nothing, accompanied by a satisfying crack of joints. Many genuinely believe such procedures must be done monthly and dutifully bring their money to the chiropractor<\/a>. Few are bothered by the fact that countless people have never had any \u201cadjustments\u201d and feel perfectly fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pseudoscientific treatment methods rely on a variety of tricks to demonstrate their supposed effectiveness. Since their actual therapeutic effect does not exceed placebo, they desperately need some kind of \u201cevidence\u201d they can present to patients. One of the simplest techniques can be conditionally called \u201ctreating a suddenly discovered disease.\u201d During an examination, the practitioner \u201cdetects\u201d … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[199,214],"tags":[204,203],"class_list":["post-6877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conditions","category-pseudoscience","tag-for-clients","tag-for-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6878,"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6877\/revisions\/6878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewsague.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}